Awful Edges
by Badfaith Obviously
Summary: Bromance? Check. Demonic circuses? Check. Sarcastic first person narration? Check? Conrad abuse? Check. Implied Casfin? Check. BATS? Hell yeah! When you throw it all together, it somehow equals a story.   Rated T for cursing, 80's and innuendo.
1. Chapter 1: Bats in a Sack

[[[So I told my friend SuperCatGirl "Hey, give me a fanfic idea and I'll write it for you".

She mapped out the storyline and beta'd my sloppy blabbering, spoon feeding me brain flakes.

Then _this_ happened.

I'm SO sorry to all these characters for making them derpy. x3

Warnings: SO much fluff, Blondie, Lots of cursing because Conrad is a whiny bitch, Bromance between two cool vampires and one sucky one, and HEAVILLY implied Casfin. But it's ok because they're like, married.

Oh yeah, don't take it seriously. Ever.

The title is from The Horror of Our Love by Ludo.]]

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><p>Awful Edges<p>

For the record, it wasn't my fault. I mean, I will admit that there are some things about the situation that could've been avoided had I more foresight... but it's still not _totally_ my fault. Some of it was definitely circumstantial, chalked up to bad luck and the slowly bloating Universe. Hell, if you're still dumb enough to believe in a Higher Power after learning that selkies wear hoodies, make uncouth sex jokes and play Pokemon, you could always say it was a divine act of God. I personally don't subscribe to that BS...definitely not after all the shit I've seen within this past year.

It started with _Hanna_. I mean, doesn't it always? It wasn't enough for the little weirdly-named carrot top to ruin my life (not to mention ending it), he had to go and get a head start on my _after_life too.

He's always been incredibly ambitious in those areas, though he's not terribly great at things like self preservation...or bathing...or remembering to spend money on necessary expenses instead Dick Tracey comics, video games and sharpies.

Somehow, and don't ask me _how_, he convinced me to start shopping for him so he'd have more time to work on cases with Long, Tall, and Dead. He has a day job but nights are strictly reserved for "sleuthing" and sometimes I think he forgets to sleep at all. I mean when would he technically have the time?

Granted _I'm_ the one that offered to start _paying_ for the groceries but only to make _my_job easier, I assure you. It's pretty hard to budget a grocery list with a pocket full of dryer lint, nickels and quarters. Not to be insensitive but...Hanna's pretty damn poor.

I happen to be that rare species of artist that manages to make money doing what they love exclusively. I haven't had a "starving artist" complex since right out of college and I'm proud of it.

The only problem is, all that hard work doesn't mean shit when you're technically dead ...and I have to design in order to keep myself moderately sane.

No matter how many snappy dishware sets or Iphone accessories I buy, eventually the lack of a need for food and toiletries leaves a gaping hole in my expenses. This is quickly filled however, by the fact that my once quiet, solitary life is suddenly clamoring with needy lunatics. Before I know it, _because of Hanna_ I also have this bratty teenager occasionally shacking up at my place and he wants stuff I'd never have in my house even when I was alive like ...Nutella. What the fuck is _Nutella?_

It is mostly for this reason that around 3 AM every Friday I'm usually tramping out of 24 Hour Savemart on a quest to ensure that Hanna has instant macaroni and cheese, lots of Mountain Dew and plenty of milk to dunk his Golden Oreos in (I have no idea how he remains that skinny).

I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I just want to make it clear before we go on, that if it wasn't for Hanna's obsession with cheap, water based processed food, _none_of this would've happened.

According to Doctor Asswipe, I'm already dead so I figured (incorrectly) that there's wasn't really a lot that could happen to me. I was so fucking wrong.

So I let my mind wander as I trudged across the deserted parking lot, pushing the cart without really looking in front of me, my feet unconsciously leading me to the place where I parked almost every time. I like to work in patterns, _orderly_patterns ...or at least I used to before shit like _this_started happening.

A rather large CRASH! interrupted my progress, wringing a half scream out of my throat and sending me careening forward, my face meeting the steel webbing of the cart's interior. Apparently nothing makes a loud noise like a large broad shouldered vampire colliding directly with a Savemart shopping cart. I might as well have hit a boulder.

"Owwwwww..._MOTHER FUCK_"!

I groaned loudly as I tried to pick my throbbing head up with a neck that now felt more like an accordion. When my vision cleared, I looked up to see a bearded square cut jaw drawn into a small worried frown. The face it was attached to was drawn in consternation and, of all things _embarrassment_. I glanced at the mournful sight of my overturned grocery cart and then back at the totally unchanged vampire standing directly in my path. Words failed me.

"Good Evening, Mr. Achenleck. I really do apologize that we continue to meet this way," said the deep voice, lightly frosted with a barely noticeable British accent. That's funny for Finas to say because, the last time, I don't remember there being a shopping cart; only a lot of screaming (mostly on my end), blood, confusion and unapologetic cheating at poker.

But I saw what he meant as soon as his friend? partner? lover?(whatever the hell they were to each other) seemed to spring from the pooled shadows around us. He popped up like some kind of dark daisy, freshly shined black shoes flashing as brightly as his two toned eyes in the moonlight. The creepy dead one was especially bright while the red one was widened in sadistic amusement.

Casimiro put his grabby hands on me. Damn it, this guy was always _touching_me. First, he kicks me in the face and now he up and _stalks_me right out of Savemart. I wish that restraining orders were viable in the supernatural community.

"_Gyahahah_"! I sputtered intelligently, seizing up like a frightened hedgehog. Except I didn't really have any spikes, so the Italian fuck continued to invade my personal space. And, oh yeah, he grinned.

"A little excitable aren't ya"? He sneered, all but massaging my shoulders which were tense with the desire to flee.

"Jesus Christ, Snaggletooth, you're a friggin' _vampire_, not a sixteen year old girl".

Finas sighed sufferingly as he dusted himself off but Casimiro paid no mind. The reedy man's good eye confronted my own head on, and I felt immediately backed into a corner. This wasn't just a random coincidence, was it? They were here looking for _me_.

"Look kid, all joking aside, we gotta talk".

"What the fuck is _wrong_with you"? I said, stalking away from his grasp and twisting around to stare at the both of them, not at all appreciating being called ikid/i. I frowned to make my distaste clear before bending down to salvage Hanna's groceries. I don't care how scary they are. Whatever the pair had to say could fucking wait, I just blew my hard earned cash and like two hours of my precious time on this crap.

"What's wrong with _you_?", retorted the gray vampire childishly, leaping nimbly to the top of the shopping cart as if it were a podium and staring down his bent nose at me.

"What the hell are ya buying-" he squinted "Oreos? Are ya in _denial_or something?"

Well... _yes_, kind of, but not to the point where I'm going to try to eat Oreos when I can't physically digest solid food, thank you very much.

"They're for _Hanna_if you must fucking know," I snapped. "What's the deal with cornering me in the parking lot anyway? What, you couldn't wait until a more respectable..."

Casimiro raised his high arching eyebrows and tapped his left foot without patience.

"Oh," I said instantly deflating. Vampires. Night time. Right. "Sorry I forgot."

Casimiro turned to Finas, his eye narrowing (the other one was always just sort of squinted anyway), practically flapping his arms in outrage. "Do you _see_ Finas? He's shopping at Savemart, he's wearing sweater vests, he can't even fucking remember the most basic...Do you see what I have to deal with here, _Jesus fucking Chri-_."

"Let me handle this Cas," said Finas calmly, his brow knitting.

The Italian snorted and hopped off the cart, giving me enough chance to awkwardly haul it back up to its wheels before Finas approached me. Thankfully, he was kind enough to keep his distance. He then drew his large hands up in a 'let's make peace' type gesture.

"Mr. Achenleck, it has come to our attention that though your red haired friend...What was his name?"

Friend, live-in stalker, constant annoyance. Same difference.

"_Hanna_," I supplied sighing.

"...means to help us, we've noticed from observing his last few cases that he's not exactly proficient in these matters and..."

"He kinda _sucks_at the whole paranormal investigation thing" supplied Casimiro, crossing his arms over his chest. "We honestly should've figured it since he was stupid enough to free Adelaide in the first place...but after watching him a couple times we're pretty sure".

I squared my shoulders, for some incomprehensible reason, feeling extremely defensive. Okay, _yes_, everything that they were saying about the psychotic ginger was technically true but ..._still_. Hanna hadn't killed anyone since me and despite being an idiot...he did _try_. That had to count for something.

"He's getting better" I said with an edge in my voice. "A bit..kind of...he's not too bad." I mean, it wasn't like he charged people too much for his services. He hardly charged anything really and he always did the best he could. Besides, Finas and Casimiro had threatened him into it, so they should just get over themselves...not that I _cared_or anything.

"Yes, but we doubt 'not too bad' would survive a second encounter with Adelaide," said Finas, raising an eyebrow. "You have no idea- the amount of power she possesses when she is free from her curse".

Uh, I _kind_ of had an idea. I mean she did sort of _kill_me.

"...And this is totally personal," Casimiro added in a growl. "She's such a fucking bitch, I can't wait to get my hands on her-"

"So..." Finas interrupted, reasserting his new role as spokesman before the Italian could continue. "We've decided to reconsider our offer for his services and instead pursue her ourselves."

I frowned dubiously, pushing the cart towards my car and flipping open the trunk. "So, what does that have to do with me?"

"As I mentioned previously, you and Adelaide have a connection. She is technically your sire, even if she has broken custom and left you to your own devices."

"You're like the little lost Ugly Duckling," Casimiro chimed in helpfully. "Nobody wants you."

Thanks for clearing that up _asshole._

"_Cas_" Finas said this time with a warning in his tone. "Mr. Achenleck, the point behind this is that we are in need of your help, and your magical connection with your sire would be invaluable in assisting our efforts to track her down."

"What if I'm not interested in er...assisting"? I said immediately, not quite over the _Ugly Duckling_ comment. "What if I say no? Believe it or not, I'm kind of busy. Besides I already have enough ..._supernatural_in my life at the moment."

Actually I wasn't busy with anything. I was _God-help-me_kind of bored, but I wasn't keen on spending any more time than I had to with these two freaks. Frankly, they gave me the willies.

This was not aided by the fact that Finas's polite voice took on a decidedly dangerous undertone. It contained the barest hint of irritation but it sent shocks of cold blasting right through me. It was the tone of someone who wasn't used to being so rudely rejected. I could now see why.

"Now why" he said narrowing deep maroon eyes. "Would you go and do a thing like _that_?"

Casimiro laughed coldly. "Ah, he thinks we're giving him a choice in the matter."

I laughed too, though I didn't find it funny at all, shifting on my feet. _Oh God._

"Look... I just...I just have a lot on my plate at the moment and I _would_, help but..."

The Italian approached me again, so fast that I didn't have time to back away. He pushed me against the hood of my car. Finas clicked his tongue disapprovingly, but he didn't interfere. Casimiro's musical voice was now unrestrained and feral.

"Snaggletooth, don't make this hard on us. I really," he clutched harder on my shoulder, and I stood dumbly frozen in fear. "_REALLY_, want to catch Adelaide..." His voice tapered off into a low hissing that sounded to me like steam whistling out of a kettle.

"And if you try to resist, you're standing in my way. Ya don't _want_to be standing in my way." Finas nodded. "Ah yes, not in this matter. It is, you see, a long standing grudge".

I felt practically weak in my knees. Oh shit. _Oh shit_. These guys were killers. They killed people _all_the time.

"Please don't hurt me" I managed in a tiny voice. Looking back on it, I don't think it was one of my finer moments. But, just because I died, doesn't mean I'm not human anymore okay? Casimiro is fucking _scary_.

Like a typical bully, the Italian was agitated further by my weakness, and he clutched me hard enough to make me squeak in pain. "I ought to just kick your ass for being..._you_. God damn it, grow a pair already"!

That was when Finas spoke up again. "Casimiro, we're not going to get anywhere this way. At best, we'll make him faint and then we'll have an unconscious fledgling on our hands." He put his hand on the other man's shoulder, and Casimiro immediately released me. I stayed backed up against my car, as they shifted places, feeling like a puddle of goo under Finas's stern gaze.

"If you want to look at it in a better light, take it this way, child. How long do you think you're going to last without some kind of guidance?"

_I'm doing pretty well so far_, I almost added but decided to stay silent with the older man glowering down at me like that. He reminded me of teachers I'd had in school as a kid. The type who would if need be, use rulers.

Without waiting for an answer, Finas continued "If you think that Casimiro and myself are among the most frightening denizens of the supernatural community, you are gravely mistaken. Once you are aware that creatures like us exist, once you have _become_ one of us, it is impossible to turn back. You _must_learn more about your natural defensive abilities...about being a vampire in general, or frankly you don't stand a chance of making it past a year...I can scarcely imagine a few decades."

"Or _days_," the Italian added.

After recovering from hearing Finas say more than three words for the first time, I began to consider it. Even though I wanted to keep denying their existence and I trusted Casimiro and Finas as far as I could throw them, what Finas had said well...it made sense.

It was the most sense I had gotten actually since I'd been bitten. Hanna didn't say anything useful, when he tried he could never stay still long enough to explain it properly, Worth...well he might've known _something_but he'd rather call me a faggot all day and night then tell me one useful thing (that, and I wasn't exactly aching for his company).

If Finas and Casimiro were experienced vampires and they were willing to teach me a thing or two it might make this surreal nightmare a little more tangible, manageable...controllable. That or it might be incredibly terrifying like their previous encounters with me.

"I... I guess that makes sense," I said with shaky affirmation. "So in exchange for helping you track down Adelaide..."

"Well for starters we won't bend your arms in half, and we'll half-ass adopt you as our little fledgling" said Casimiro with a grin that made me very uncomfortable. "Our own little Ugly Duckling! Won't that be _special_?"

"It's nothing so dramatic Casimiro," said Finas, sounding amused in a very reserved way.

"...and it won't be _dangerous_ or anything will it"? I said, ready to commit suicide for the tones I'd been taking. But, fuck it. I'd rather be a coward than get dragged into more dangerous shenanigans. I got enough of that with Hanna for Christ sakes. I wasn't anxious to encounter the purple haired bitch again either. The first time hadn't exactly gone swimmingly. "I mean for _me_...since I'm just the uh...tracker."

Finas's frown deepened slightly while Casimiro gave me a disgusted stare. But the broad shouldered vampire sighed and dipped his shaggy head.

"It very well might be dangerous. However, Casimiro and I will do everything in our power to ensure that if you help us... no harm will come to you."

I bristled and began to argue but he put up his hands.

"We are not _the_ most frightening, as I've said, but we _are_capable. Very capable. You have no need to doubt our ability to protect you." Casimiro kicked a few dead leaves around with the toe of his pointed shoes. "Living a few hundred years will do that to you".

Seeing as I obviously didn't have much of a choice, I decided to take that as an acceptable reassurance. "Well" I said rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly. "Can we get out of the parking lot then? I still have to take these home."

Casimiro snorted "Don't kid yourself. We're not driving anywhere with you. You're coming with us."

"I have to take Hanna's groceries back," I snapped. "If you're going to become one of the _many_people who fucking abuse my humanitarian sensibilities, you can fucking wait your turn."

"Don't talk back to me, you little fa-"

"Silence, the both of you," grunted Finas, flicking his hand. "I haven't ridden in a car in fifty years or more Casimiro, and this one is a particularly nice model. I'd be interested to experience it again."

I blinked in surprise "Er...really"? Casimiro followed suit. "_Really_Finas? Those things are nothing but smoke belching-..."

"Yes" confirmed Finas pleasantly. "Could we drive with the hood down as well?"

"But _Finaas_" Casimiro whined, his long arms suddenly going limp as he stared at the car. "The kid doesn't even know how to shift into bat form yet and it's not vampire-y to ride around in a sports car..."

Finas simply looked at him and he grunted in a defeated tone. "_Fine_."

He got in the back seat, frowning but not arguing further. If I had been less fucking weirded out by the whole situation, I probably would've kind of found it funny. I've been called a pussy at times... but at least I wasn't pussy-_whipped._

The duration of the ride consisted of me being stressed out and trying in vain to concentrate on the road ahead with two curious vampires in my car.

Casimiro seemed to find fault with every dip and turn I made. I quickly found myself growing frustrated with both his complaints and Finas's historical banter, not to mention the constant tweaking of my radio and air conditioning system. He seemed astounded with the way cars had progressed in the last few decades.

It would've been interesting actually, except that Finas didn't speak much. He trailed off a lot in the middle of his sentences, and judging the way they were looking at each other I assumed that they had telepathic abilities and were conducting entire conversations without moving their mouths.

It was the only explanation for the way they seemed to think and speak in perfect sync. I began to feel like an even bigger tool than usual since they weren't including _me_ in the conversation. _Great_, now I was a provider for a shitty paranormal investigator, the roommate of a socially challenged selkie and apparently the chauffeur for two vampires. Mother would be so damn proud.

The night was waning by the time I finally pulled up to the complex, very frazzled and ready to give Hanna his food and then tell him to get the fuck out of my place so I could get some well deserved shut-eye. That is, if Finas and Casimiro were willing to put off their _extremely_demanding proposition for one friggin' day; if that wasn't asking too fucking much.

"What did you say your name was again?" I heard a voice I immediately recognized as I stood outside my condo's door.

Normally not very much was going on around 3:30 AM in my apartment complex since it consisted of mainly respectable hard working individuals (something that was defied constantly by the company I now kept). So it was easy to hear the conversation taking place even before I opened the door. I wasn't sure why but I hesitated.

I knew Hanna will have probably been spending the extra hour or two abusing my stereo system, my cable or my Wii, and Veser would probably be with him, doing something that would inevitably make me very angry and threaten to kick him out and reclaim my living space in the name of all that was holy and right (though unfortunately that never seemed to actually happen).

But the voice that made the reply was so sober and mature I knew instantly it didn't belong to the teenager. "I didn't say," he replied promptly. "It's Adam Van Dyke, though. A pleasure to meet you."

_Who the hell?_Casimiro and Finas had agreed to help me carry the groceries, so they were still a ways down the hall, gently arguing with each other in the distance as I stood with my hand on the door knob.

"Jeez, I didn't know Conrad still saw his old friends now that you know..."

"We've been friends long enough for him to trust me" said the stranger, pausing before adding. "Would you like to pet him? He doesn't bite."

"He's _so_cute" Hanna trilled delightedly. "I won't pet him though, heh, animals don't usually like me".

My jaw tightened. There were so many things wrong with this, I didn't even know where to begin. First of all, this guy claiming to be my friend and sitting inside my apartment, I had no fucking idea who he was. And second of all...there was some kind of animal in there. An _animal_inside my nice clean condo! Toni was bad enough, but at least she usually stayed in human form when sitting on the couch.

Without waiting another second I burst the door open, a few bags still clutched in my arms. "What the hell is going on in here!" I demanded, immediately whirling to see Hanna sitting on the couch with a man I had never seen before in my life.

'Adam Van Dyke' had a pair of blue goggles fixed so tightly over his eyes that I couldn't see them. They might as well have _been_ his eyes, round, eerie, cyan…_unfeeling_. Almost every part of his body was covered by some kind of barrier, and it had the effect of making him look like some kind of alien invader from a really low budget horror movie.

Just as I suspected _there it was_, vermin, a ferret draped protectively around his shoulder. I noticed that it bristled and started to twitch and paw at the neck of its master when it noticed my presence.

Hanna's blue eyes lit up when he saw me walk in with bags, hopping to his feet immediately and leaving the stranger on the couch. I didn't like the way that guy was looking at me. It wasn't aggressive but it was ...cold and observatory. It was like he was looking at me through glass in some kind of terrarium. Hanna's flow of babble was immediate and almost completely unbroken, distracting my attention.

"Hey Connie! Thanks for the vittles, hehe, Ziggy was throwing some pretty weird stuff together for a while. Did you get Vesser's Nutella?

He's at a concert by the way with Toni and Zig went with 'em to keep them out of trouble. Death metal isn't really my thing though... Your...your friend said he wanted to see you. He said you guys talked earlier on the...no?" the redhead explained, jerking his head back at the tall, stoic man who didn't move or even seem to breathe much.

I could see by Hanna's face that he already knew something was wrong, that he had screwed up somehow... it was very slowly dawning on him that perhaps he should have questioned the masked stranger a bit more. I had time to think in a rushed huff. _Damn it Hanna, why are you so naïve?_Feeling weak in the arms I set the groceries down, almost letting them fall from my hands.

There's always this dragging moment of calm before everything goes to hell. They don't only exist in fiction, your mind fucking plays tricks on you. At the time those few seconds seemed to crawl by. I still remember watching Hanna's face fall, unease beginning to creep into it, and then briefly something I didn't see there very often, fear.

'Adam Van Dyke' moved so slowly in that pocket of unmarked time, he was making some kind of reaching movement with his arm into his coat, but then everything suddenly sped up, like a car crash in some corny action movie, and I lost track of all those individual elements. I couldn't fucking tell you what Hanna was doing, or what that arm was reaching for. I turned around.

"Is there a problem Mr. Achenleck-" I heard Finas's voice pop in brightly and then cut off sharply, just a sharp collision of pitch, as if that brightness had taken an unexpected dive down a sheer cliff. I turned around only to see the flash of the movement where the two vampires had obviously been standing in the door frame but had disappeared like smoke on a gust of wind.

It was then that the first gun shot rang out, a bullet whizzing past my head with an echoing CRACK! and SLAM! I was on the floor, on my knees, my arms flailing wildly as I yelled hoarsely in my usual eloquent fashion. "_WHAT THE FUCK_!"

I heard Finas's yell from somewhere down the hall, even it's deep booming report sounding weak next to the loudness of the gun shot. "RUN CONRAD!" but

I scrambled uselessly on my legs when I looked up to see the barrel pointing directly at me. Another yell resounded, this time I thought it might've been Casimiro's voice.

"_RUN!_"

But I was like a deer in headlights. My spindly legs were Jell-O. I was fucked.

"Leave him the fuck alone, Van Dyke!"

I heard Hanna spit from behind the couch, his sharpie uncapped with that fucking_psycho_ look in his wide, electric blue eyes. It was an expression that usually worried me immensely, but in this case it worried me even _more_because he looked pissed as hell and ready to do something really rash. A fresh, unfinished rune glowed on his hand, which trembled in his obviously overwhelming anger. The shape the rune was taking reminded me of the curling figure of a bomb's fuse.

_Hanna no, fucking stop you have NO chance._I wanted to say that, but I couldn't move my mouth.

If I survived this I made a mental note to have a little _talk_with Hanna about the pros and cons of threatening a person with a gun when you don't have a gun yourself. He drew another thin streak of a line across his arm and then bared his teeth in a grimace.

"You aren't Connie's friend, are you? Friends don't let friends blow each other's brains out. You fucking _lied_to me, man. That's not cool."

"It's Abner Van Slyke actually and I was under cover. I'll have to ask you to put the marker down and exit the complex." He paused, the gun was still in my face but his attention was on Hanna. I suppose I could have tried to run for it, but I was still frozen dumbly in shock, a vampire-shaped puddle on the floor.

Abner continued softly, as though he didn't feel he needed to raise his voice to be heard. "I will only ask once, Mr. Cross. In the effort to control the global spike in vampirism, certain sacrifices must be made. I usually try to avoid human casualties but I have no qualms about doing away with the allies of vampires." The glow in those goggles seemed to flicker and darken."Why is it, that you are writing on yourself?"

"You're about to friggin' see," said Hanna beginning to finish the rune he was drawing across his own arm. Abner, in one swift motion jammed the barrel of the gun against my nose with sucker-punch force, sending me spitting blood and, cursing in an arc backwards, the room spinning.

With a sharp swoop he turned, blasting at Hanna just as an eerie red flare began to crackle around the younger man's silhouette. The sound of the gunshot and the curious humming of the magical energy ..._stuff_culminated into a sound that practically broke my ear drums and would have surely woken up everyone in the complex by now if the world made sense. It was a sound like five hundred angry bees buzzing at once.

I personally have no idea how magic works any better than when I first met Hanna. I really don't see how drawing _stuff_on yourself with a sharpie can give you powers, if that were so you'd see a lot of flying scene kids with laser vision, you know?

I'm beginning to think that it doesn't actually make sense, and the only reason Hanna can do magic is because he doesn't _care_how the fuck it works, he's just crazy.

It must've been sheer dumb luck that Hanna's spell had already started working by the time Abner decided to exterminate the potential threat. However, I think something must've gone wrong because instead of being useful in any way, the spell seemed to sort of _back fire_, or combust on itself. I don't think Hanna got shot but then again my apartment complex is not on the ground floor.

I screamed when I saw Hanna crash backwards through the window and disappear out of it, scrabbling to my feet and almost forgetting the fact that my nose was broken and there was a psychotic... vampire hunter not three feet away from me. I stumbled across broken glass and looked out into the night but I didn't have enough time to actually check to see if there was a splattered paranormal investigator on the street. My heart was in my throat, I could feel hysterical tears welling in my eyes. _No No No_

A gloved hand cruelly caught the back of my neck and threw me against the ground like I was a discarded piece of tissue paper, my legs folding in on themselves and my wrists meeting the floor at a cruel angle. Abner's gun clicked again as he adjusted it. I looked into the whirlpool goggles, searching hopelessly for any sort of sympathy or mercy. I found none of that, as it seemed to be reserved strictly for those Abner Van Syke considered _human_

Here's a hint: me and Hanna weren't on the list.

I should have run when Finas said to, I should have run a long time ago but now it was too late. I apologize for the reiteration, but I was utterly fucked.  
>Abner Van Slyke's ferret twisted and hissed, dancing excitedly around his neck as I began to plead in a hoarse whisper.<p>

"Oh god, please please PLEASE, don't kill me. I'm not a threat! I haven't hurt anyone I promise I-"

"You're a _vampire_ Mr. Achenleck. It would be remiss to me, a vampire _hunter_ to simply let you go" he said in a bored voice, positioning his weapon. "A very small, weak one, I grant, but that's how they _all_start out, I assure you. Please stay still, if I miss it'll be much more painful for you and that is not at all my intention.." He lifted the gun, I saw his hand twitch. This was it; He was going to shoot me, kill me again just like he most likely killed Hanna.

"I HAVEN'T HURT ANYONE"! I almost wailed, crawling backwards like a cockroach scuttling away from the sound of footsteps.

"Jesus Christ, Snaggletooth, shut the hell up!"

_Huh?_

Casimiro pounced on the other man in one fluid motion. His hands seemed to melt through fabric as if it were snow; the only sign that the fingers were actually damaging it was the awful tearing sound that seemed to come too late after the action. He clawed, ripping away at all those carefully placed barriers and the skin beneath them, his enormous fangs bared in an animalistic snarl, and that white eye glowing impossibly bright.

Abner made a sound that did not at all suit him, a panicked screech, wrestling in blind hysteria to get the vampire off of him, crushing broken glass under his thick boots with sharp splintering sounds.

Casimiro batted his rifle away like a cat pawing lazily at a butterfly and I heard it THUD as it hit the floor, bent into something that could've easily, in my experience, been modern art. Casimiro met my gaze for about two seconds and for that moment I was almost more scared of _him_than I was of Abner.

"RUN! FUCKING _RUN_, YA STUPID BITCH"!

Finally the command registered and I got to my feet and crossed the condo's threshold, air hitting my face and drying the blood pooled near my nostrils which dripped down my chin. I didn't even see the hallway in front of me as I pounded it under my feet. I was terrified. I just wanted to get as far away from that man as possible.

I stumbled awkwardly to a stop as I neared the start of the staircase, if I wasn't dead my heart would've been beating so loudly I could've probably heard the sound bouncing off the walls. Thankfully I stopped short enough to avoid falling directly on top of Finas, who seemed to have this knack for standing directly in my path. His habitually solemn face was the closest I've ever seen it to concerned, no, it actually _was_concerned.

"Where is Casimiro?"

_Where is..?_

I blinked in utter helplessness for a moment, my brain refusing to put together logical sentences. For a strange moment we simply stared at each other. However, soon we both were distracted by the loud _BANG!_from far away which shook the cheap paintings on the hallway's walls. Finas's head jerked suddenly as if in reaction to an automobile collision.

"A gun." The words tumbled out of my mouth like water out of the lungs of a half drowned person. "Another gun...he had _another_..."?

_BANG! BANG!_Finas's hefty palm crushed me down easily as two more shots rang out, so close I could feel the air as they passed. I could see Abner's mechanical form appearing from the end of the hallway, those burning blue goggles getting brighter and brighter like a swiftly approaching semi truck as he neared.

Finas stiffened and I stared at him for a second wondering if he was going to try to flee but the brawny vampire didn't move a muscle. The hard lines of his face formed a mask of tranquil fury. There was no possibility of flight there.

In retrospect what I did next seems a lot more embarrassing...but I'm not here to sugarcoat things for you. As you've probably already surmised, I'm no hero. I'm not proud of it, but that's just the way I was built: fragilely. You could say that I was metaphorically made in Taiwan. So again, I ran.

My panicked dive down the staircase, or rather my "no holds barred all out escape attempt" was very short lived. My long spidery legs did a few unsteady jumps, and I almost managed to make it halfway down the staircase, before a swift kick helped me finish the journey.

Except instead of landing gracefully on my feet I landed flat on my face, whimpering incoherently in pain and a puddle of blood. I'm somewhat glad that being a vampire means that you can break your fall with your neck. It's a neat trick once you get the hang of it.

"You're social choices have made things significantly more difficult for me than they had to be, Mr. Achenleck. But, in a way, I am in your debt. Without your help I wouldn't have been able to catch two more of you, much more aggressive specimens to be sure. It's like using bait fish to lure in the big ones, wouldn't you say?"

I could scarcely imagine a man who wouldn't even step outside the house without latex covering at least three fourths of his body _fishing_, so I guess the simile didn't really _click_with me, but I wasn't going to say much of anything, other than a confused gurgle of blood.

Abner did not seem perturbed by this however. He grabbed me by the ankle and all too easily began to drag me up the staircase, my broken nose screaming in pain as it made friends with each step on the way up.

When he finally hauled me back up into the hallway the first thing I noticed was that I couldn't see Finas anywhere. Where had he gone? Last time he had managed to stop a fight between a werewolf and Casimiro with one word, how had Abner gotten rid of him so quickly?

"Up on your feet Mr. Achenleck," said Abner in that same utterly toneless drawl. I couldn't help but notice that he seemed very irked by the idea of having to touch me even though his gloves were intact. It was made worse by the fact that there were huge tears in his carefully constructed clothes and bleeding slash marks blazing across his face. I could visibly _see_how uncomfortable he was...it made me look like a pinnacle of confidence and calm.

I could see more of his face now, long and sober with a Greek nose sort of like mine except more _falcon-y_. It was regal in a predatory way and it looked like it had been carved out of stone. He made the fucking zombie seem like a bleeding heart. Then again, he also looked like he had been mauled by two large Rottweilers.

"Um no...Fuck you," I managed to slur irately, wiping my jaw with a shaky wrist. I wasn't so much being brave as beginning to be tired of the whole thing. _He's going to kill me anyway, why I should I do what he says?_

He brought the gun to rest against the side of my head. This one was a hand gun, so it appeared my theory had been correct. I wasn't passing GO, I wasn't collecting a hundred dollars.

"Let me explain in more detail. Get up and start walking or I'll kill you now instead of a few minutes from now."

Well when you put it like _that_.

I limped back to my freshly destroyed apartment, feeling immediately sick when I noticed not only the ruined upholstery and scratched wallpaper, but the huge pools of dark blood staining the carpet.

Finas and Casimiro were still nowhere to be seen...what had the bastard done,_dumped_them somewhere? No, he wouldn't have had anywhere near enough time.

Abner interrupted my train of thought with another jab from the hand gun. "On your knees, Mr. Achenleck." Don't get too excited you damn sickos, the guy's a_mysophobe_. I spent a lot of time listening to psychobabble as a kid, so I should know a thing or two about neurosis.

If the dress choices didn't clue me in, while he was holding a gun to my head with one hand, his other hand was being used primarily for disinfecting and bandaging his wounds as best he could. Pretty dexterous if you ask me, but very frenzied.

Anyway, I dropped down bonelessly to my thoroughly abused knees, managing another quick glance at the shattered widow while Abner was busy being neurotic. I hoped that Hanna's dumb ass luck had kicked in, and wherever he was, he was still alive. Or sort of alive, I'm still extremely sketchy on the details regarding that.

Where were the fucking _cops_ anyway? We must've made enough noise by now. Oh forget it, whenever Hanna was involved, the entire _concept_of law and order seemed to be totally irrelevant. There's probably some bullshit "magic" excuse in there somewhere.

"This should make you a bit more manageable". Fully expecting a bullet to the head, I cringed. I was met with the explosion of pain I expected, except not just in my skull, _all over_. Death has this way of clearing the slate. It hurts for a moment, but then you kind of lose the conception of hurt. I knew instantly that I wasn't dying, because the pain never went away.

A burning brick red seizure of agony shocked through me, a scream exploding hoarsely from my throat as my skin felt like it was tightening, _tightening_to the point where it no longer fit across my bones. The bones themselves must've been splintering but it was happening too fast for me to register each individual spike of pain, and the steady tide didn't ebb. Eventually all pain became the same.

I tried to babble, probably to beg him to stop whatever the hell he was doing to me but I found that my voice wasn't really what it ought to be. It sounded so fucking small, as if even though I was screaming at the top of my lungs it was somehow _muffled_- no- shrunken. Then, once it was out of me there was nothing left and I could feel the world slipping away.

"_Oooghhhh_."

When it was over, the first thing I noticed was how incredibly disoriented I was. I felt like I had a combination of jet lag from a forty hour flight and the world's worst hang over. My surroundings were unfamiliar. It still smelled like my apartment but it simply couldn't be...wait a minute, since when did I start noticing how things _smell_? This freaky vampire stuff...it creeps up on you. Anyway...

It couldn't be my apartment because everything was HUGE. The futon and coffee table that Veser usually thoroughly abused was at least three times the size it should have been, and so was everything else. Even the tiny patch of carpet I was planted upon seemed gargantuan. I didn't have enough time to look around more however, I let out a surprised cry wriggling like a hooked worm as two fingers pinched what registered as the back of my neck and...picked me up. The world began swinging in terrifying quickness, my tiny ...paws flailing. _Paws?_

I looked down into the seemingly bottomless black hole of a large cloth sack, thinking almost immediately that I did NOT want to go in there, though I was being forced through the opening anyway. My captor gave the whole thing a jerking shake, forcing me down into the enormous folds.

"HEY WHAT ARE YOU- _OOF_"!

I landed on something warm, kinda furry, about yey big which grunted in pain under me... though the interior of the sack was so small that I had no choice but to just sit there, squinting my tiny beady eyes in an attempt to get a clear view of what the hell was going on.

After a moment or two of stillness I began to struggle blindly and in complete panic, scrabbling my claws at the side of the bag's interior. Judging by the colorful remodeling Adelaide had managed to inflict on my beautiful apartment, I didn't think this would be too much of a problem, but my claws slid over the surface uselessly, as if it were coated in a layer of malleable ice.

Casimiro's voice suddenly growled, raspy in my ear. It sounded like it usually did, except also sort of like it had been run over with an SUV and shaken in a jar full of nails. He sounded _awful_, and an overpowering smell of blood clung to him.

"You're even dumber than I thought ya were if ya think we haven't already tried that."

"He's never shifted before Casimiro, and being forced this way is quite painful".

"Why can't we get out?" I groaned and began to rant. What the fuck was the _use_of being a vampire anyway? "Aren't you guys supposed to be _cool_, why can't we get out a fucking BAG?"

"It's magically enhanced, Conrad" came Finas muffled but calm voice from below. "Please calm down, I'm underneath you two and it's making this somewhat uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable," Casimiro spat. "Right. And fuck you, Snaggletooth. We're totally cool".

Despite what he had just said, Casimiro also halfheartedly scratched at the bag with just the tips of his right wing's claws, but it was less desperate and more sullen than anything. His left wing seemed to be folded at an unnatural angle, and even in the darkness I could see that it was sleek with blood. So that was where the smell had come from.

"Get the hell off me, _checca_, you're foot is in my face!" I couldn't see the extent of the damage, but I thought that maybe if he was healthy enough to call me a faggot in Italian, he'd pull through.

I shifted slightly trying to stretch my wings but failing utterly. I felt like someone had tried to take my entire body and compact it into the shape of a lunch box, balanced on two other lunch boxes.

Bats...we were now bats. It made sense now, looking back on it, though because of how disoriented I was after my first change, my first _magically forced_ change, I have to admit I was a bit slow on the uptake. I was utterly silent for a few seconds as the gravity of my current situation began to unfold in my mind like a pair of tiny wings.

In case you were confused, here's a summary of our situation: I'm a bat, Casimiro and Finas are also bats, we're currently stuffed in a cotton sack which may or may not have magical properties and the person holding that sack happens to be a man who _professionally_ kills vampires. How the fuck did I go from buying Oreos and Mountain Dew for Hanna to..._this?_

"This is incredibly undignified," I heard Finas's dry comment from the bottom, the heaviness of said bat probably contributing to how hard Abner would have to try to hold it with one hand. I could almost hear Finas's thought process, the gears turning in his head, hidden from the view of every person on the face of the earth except possibly... sometimes Casimiro. Then he spoke again in a quieter tone.

"Why did you do that Cas?"

Casimiro, snorted and aimed a well placed kick to my nose with the flat of his hind paw, causing me to grunt and wriggle in pain.

"OW! DAMMIT!"

What did Finas mean by _that_? 'Why does he kick me in the face every time he meets me' or 'why did he save my life'? I was curious about both.

Casimiro's answer was gruff and somewhat embarrassed. "I thought you'd get pissed if I let him die so quickly. He was too stupid to run away on his own."

Finas shuffled underneath me. "You're an idiot, Cas" he said. There was something surprisingly gentle in his tone.

Even my shock couldn't numb the sudden stab of guilt that hit me harder than the barrel of Abner's gun. What was going to happen to us now, because of me?

Speaking of Abner, a consistent _bumping_ began, which I could only assume indicated the tall man's strides. It made Casimiro consistently hiss in pain as my fluffy body slammed into his, and his slammed into Finas's, who simply grunted in irritation. This inconvenience interrupted any more discourse we might have had, though I had a _lot_ of fucking questions for those two.

Abner was carrying us somewhere, that I was sure of. Either that or he was more of a sadist than he let on.

This seemed to go on for ages, and after I got used to my own high pitched squeaking I started to let out a truly impressive tide of expletives in time with each fucking _bump_!, because well, when you're a bat in a sack you haven't really got much to lose.

Finally it came to a sudden stop, the sack suddenly jostling and sending us tumbling out of our neatly stacked order. I ended up with a good deal of Finas on top of me, and let me tell you, that is a lot of bat. Not that I'm calling him _fat_or anything, I'm sure it's all purely muscle weight.

"Excuse me, so sorry," he said gruffly, sounding ruffled at best.

Casimiro's grumblings for just a second took on a tone that resembled a whimper, but then he just started cursing again under his breathe. I stiffened suddenly as I heard a sharp ringing vibrate through the air. No, not just ringing, a ring _tone_, like for a phone.

_ "One way or another I'm gonna find ya.."_

"No fucking way..." Casimiro's voice groaned again, sounding even more pained…_emotionally_pained. I didn't blame him... Blondie... really?

_ "I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha"-_

It was suddenly cut off as Abner flipped open his phone. Don't ask me how he managed that with a bag full of bats in one hand and a gun in the other. Maybe his stupid ferret grabbed it for him. Well...all things considered that would be a pretty smart ferret, but to say so would be fraternizing with the enemy.

"Abner Van Slyke, Vampire Extermination Services LTD." he said formally in that same dull stacatto. He talked with slightly more music in his voice than a GPS navigation system...barely. "Who may I ask, am I speaking to?"

"This guy is such a t-" Casimiro began to gripe.

"Shhh," Finas snapped "Listen."

Abner was silent for half a second and then responded. "Ah, Magnus... no...not presently. I would but you see I'm in the middle of..."

There was a pause.

"Three." There was something hesitant in his voice, I thought, though it was hard to tell with the way he spoke, but it sounded uncomfortable, like the voice of someone who had just spotted roadkill in their path and were extremely grossed out by the sight of it.

"No...two are classified X..I've been pursuing them for quite some time...the little one is A...No, he still has his wounds."

Three guesses who the 'little one' was. I'll give you a hint- it's not Finas.

"_This guy has chased you before?_" I whispered, my eyes wide, but Finas brushed me into silence with the tip of his wing. I could see from his eyes that he was trying to absorb every nuance of the conversation.

"... I was planning on dispatching them at home to outrun morning traffic... What?"

Then his voice hardened like quickly freezing ice. "_No_certainly not! Magnus...I understand your interest in creatures of this profile... but it's simply not my way to get involved in that business of yours-"

He clutched the bag harder, and then all three of us made some kind of _oofing _noise when he probably did the humanitarian thing and just let us drop into a heap.

"I have appointments to keep... specialized procedures. No, I don't care how much you're willing to pay it's simply out of the question."

There was an urgent high pitched squeaking noise that suddenly cut through Abner's sentence. Was that the damn _ferret_?

"Ah, excuse me; allow me to deliberate with my associate."

There was more chattering from the mustelid, accompanied by a perfectly timed "_Hm_" or "_Really_?" in Abner's slow, mind numbingly consistent drawl.

I almost lost my mind listening to that nonsense, and that's from someone who listens to Hanna speak, and occasionally conduct conversations with people like Veser and _Worth_

"_He's fucking mental_" whispered Casimiro weakly but with no less venom. I really don't think Casimiro has the right to be criticizing someone's mental stability, but I wasn't about to interrupt.

Finally, thank God, it came to an end. "Interesting points Para, I didn't consider it from that perspective. Bills, after all, must be attended to if one is to further their efforts in the interest of mankind... and ferret food must be paid for, as well." He seemed to return to his phone conversation with a tiny bit more spirit.

"How much did you say again?"

The next agonizing minutes were spent haggling, because _apparently_vampires weren't quite as common as Hanna would've led us to believe (at least not in handy storage containers)... and then the conversation abruptly ended.

"Ah... I'd rather not pay a visit to the grounds... it's not the most sanitary place in the world, Magnus... Very well, but expect an extra fee for delivery... and I simply refuse to leave the car. No... no they've been Capped by my shifting solution, I have them in hand.

"...Yes. Quite. Goodbye".

From what I could only assume was the back seat of Abner's car, the ride was incredibly smooth. However, even though we were no longer being jostled, I still felt like I was on a high speed train beginning to run off of its tracks. At the moment, that was the most suitable metaphor for the turns my life had taken... er... sorry... _afterlife_.

I'm still getting used to it.

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><p>There's an awesome Chapter One Illustration by SuperCatGirl on Deviantart! Go check it out!<p>

Please leave a review!


	2. Chapter 2: The Ringmaster's Face

Don't look at me like that. Blame it all on **SuperCatGir**l I just _write_ this stuff. x_X

I know the story seems like it's getting progressively more serious, but don't worry the next chapter will be an utter **mindfuck.** :D This has been both incredibly fun and amazingly crippling. A good majority of it was written with SuperCatGirl staring at me from across a sofa like this: :l

PS: I'm sorry, Casimiro I promise I won't beat you up in every chapter. Conrad is the one whose supposed to get beat up in every chapter.  
>PPS: I Finas'd it!<p>

**I apologize to Tessa Stone for making all her characters, which I do NOT own sound so derpy. I do unfortunately own Magnus. Ew**

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><p>Awful Edges<p>

Have you ever taken a nice cruise by the sea shore in an automobile? It's been years since I've done that since somewhere along the way, I stopped going out in the sun. When I wasn't lurking in some dark coffee house, I spent all my time designing, playing video games, or reading. Looking back on it, I probably should've taken up jogging or badminton while I had the chance. By the time the Apocalypse rolls around, Terry Pratchett will be fucking dead, Nintendo will own every gaming platform, and I'll be bored as hell.

Anyway, in case you're wondering, the whole 'cruise by the seashore' thing is not as fun when you're stuffed in a small cotton sack with two other grown men. Yes, we were bats, but that didn't make it any less awkward. Casimiro's left hind paw kept nearly kicking me in the face every five minutes, as if it did it unconsciously out of _spite_, and Finas was like a large furry paperweight on top of my stomach.

I dozed for what must've been hours, but I was gradually pulled out of that deep stupor vampires go into by another subtle form of agony. The sack had obviously been designed to block out light, but it wasn't doing _that _great of a job at it. The once white material was glowing red and orange like the flag of some aggressive foreign nation, with the heat blaring down on it and cooking me from the inside. A car is not the best place to be when you're a vampire and it's approaching morning…it's like being a pizza-bagel in a microwave oven.

It didn't take long for all three of us to wake up, though we weren't exactly in a conversational mood for a variety of reasons. None of us made any mention of our shared discomfort as it was a presence that loomed over us collectively, an enormous elephant in the proverbial room. No one wanted to be the first one to say 'What if we get fried in here"?

Also, it was a bit hard to think over the music that blared from Abner's speakers in a crackly babble.

_Let's dance, put on your red shoes and dance the blues_

_Let's dance, to the song they're playin' on the radio_

The first thing Casimiro did was crack open one eye and make an aggressive sound, embodying outrage and dissent.

"Fucking garlic-toting...Pine-Sol bathing... _tool._ Finas. I hated the 80's. That was the _worst _period in history."

"Come now, Cas, surely _you've_ been through worse," croaked Finas. "Even compared to the Great Trench Wars?"

"_Definitely_, at least they didn't have Bowie" Casimiro said with chilling finality.

Since I'm the only one who hasn't lived through more than one generation, I didn't really have anything to add to that. They soon stopped the pop culture bashing, however, going still, as if they had suddenly turned into whimsical, if slightly Gothic figurines. There was an incredibly awkward moment where they didn't move or say anything, and I found myself talking just to hear myself speak.

"Guys...what're you doing"? My voice sounded like someone had combed over it with a rake. It's a good thing vampires can't see in the mirror. I would've been pretty rough.

"Shut it, Conbitch," Casimiro said scathingly, running his small pink tongue over the inside of his considerably large teeth. "I'm trying to hear." True to his statement, ears flicked upward, his muzzle suddenly tensing. I watched as the nostrils flared and he opened his mouth slowly like a snake testing the air.

_Hey_, that time he almost got my name right.

I adjusted my glasses awkwardly with the weird little tips of my bat...finger things. Sorry for the inaccuracy, but I was kind of _new_ to this. I must've missed that Anatomy of Placental Flying Mammals course in college.

"Listen to _what_"? I asked with increasing exasperation._ "_We're in a freaking bag, how can you hear anything over the music?"

Finas frowned distractedly as if I my voice was an annoying buzz in one of his large funnel-like ears. "Waves. Cas, how far do you think we are from the shore line?"

"_Eh_ not far. The ground roadside must be pretty sandy. Scrub area, I think. Soil smells dry," muttered Casimiro, using his good wing to scratch his left ear, first managing to elbow me in the chest without so much as a 'sorry'.

"_You're doing that on purpose,_" I murmured sulkily, shifting my wings which were beginning to feel very tender on top of every other discomfort I was being forced to deal with. "How can you tell all that just by the way things smell, anyway? Why not just ask Abner where we are?"

Finas sighed as if I had just asked him how to spell the word 'obvious'. "Conrad, Abner is _selling_ us to someone. He is not going to profit if he gives us information that would inevitably help us escape."

Was Finas _that_ confident in his ability to escape in the first place? He seemed so self-assured. I couldn't help but glean a little assurance from it. I was about to ask him as much when the car suddenly slowed and pulled to a stop.

Abner turned the radio off and Casimiro sighed in relief, scratching softly at the material. "God damn it. I don't care where we're going, I just wanna get out of this frickin' bag," he complained as his red eye flashed with anxiety and irritation.

That statement filled me with ominous dread. "That's like saying 'at least it can't get any worse' "I huffed under my breathe. It had been my experience that yes, things _could _always get worse.

I heard the low mechanical hum of a car window opening and the soft chattering of the ferret as if it were constantly whispering juicy tidbits of gossip into its master's ear.

With a perfectly timed pause, Abner's molasses lilt consoled his furry companion. "Don't worry Para, we'll be home right after this...No, I don't think he's that great of a conversationalist either but we'll just have to grin and bear it."

The image of Abner grinning was suddenly very disturbing to me and I was glad it was just an expression.

There were a few moments of silence, accompanied by busy shuffling from the front seat which could've indicated Abner doing any number of things. Maybe he was, I dunno, cleaning his guns? Or teaching his ferret to do back-flips? Wiping down the windows? Anything is possible when you're a certified psychotic with semi automatic weapons at your disposal.

Then, suddenly, I heard a light voice bounce into in my eardrums like a red plastic ball. It certainly did not belong to Abner. It was like someone had taken the inflection of a normal human male in possibly their mid twenties and put it through a cotton candy machine or a taffy puller at one of those old fashioned carnivals. It was blatantly homosexual in a way that was almost offensive... like it was actually _put on; _an imitated accent which was fakedto hide some kind of colder, less flamboyant reality.

"Van Slyke! It's been ages since I've seen a frown _that_ deep. I was beginning to miss it. It becomes a rare commodity, when one spends _so-o _much time trafficking clowns."

"Magnus," said Abner flatly, as more of an observation than any sort of grandiose greeting gesture.

"Clowns?" asked Finas to himself softly, as though he were speculating on the weather.

"Well since you appear to be eager to get on your way," that airy voice rang out again.. "Let's not beat around the bush!"

"Sounds like this guy would _love _that," Cas apparently couldn't help putting in, but he was quickly anchored back down into silence by an unamused growl from Finas.

_Magnus_ then took on a tone of prepubescent excitement as he clapped his hands together like a realtor making a big sale. "Well don't be shy, Abby. Show me where they are."

"In the back seat" Abner said in a bland voice, as if he really didn't care either way. "Sun's coming up. Best get them in quick if you want them to keep."

_What are we, a fucking wrapped up meat loaf?_

Magnus certainly made it sound that way, if you could imagine say, a person with an _intense, _borderline obsessive craving for meatloaf. He had this weird breathing that reminded me of kids I had known in grade-school who had to use inhalers; except it wasn't any sort of respiratory problem that was causing the breathiness. This was an almost constant, frenzied titter of snickering laughter that coated the underside of every sentence with a layer of corn syrup.

Suddenly the bag was lifted but not with the sturdiness with which Abner had gripped it. Magnus swung us from side to side gleefully like a child with a bag full of Halloween candy, causing us to roll and crash into each-other, spitting and hissing like demonically cursed bowling pins.

Casimiro and I, for all our differences, had similar ideas of how to voice our displeasure.

"FUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

"They still sound feisty! _Energetic_, hehheh, I was beginning to worry that you'd duped me, Abby. Not many vampires stay alive for very long when in your company."

"That's the way we tend to prefer it," Abner affirmed. "It keeps things neater, destroys any niggling loose ends."

"I happen to like loose ends," purred Magnus. "They make for good entertainment. Oh don't look at me like that. By the way, I don't have your money until after tonight's show, Abner. Looks like you'll have to finally accept my invitation". His voice had a malicious drop in tone. _Oopsies._

The other man's voice was suddenly outraged, like an ATM machine that would vengefully gorge on a debit card if provoked. "I told you I don't _want_ any part in your idiotic theatrics, Magnus. I just want the amount we agreed upon."

"Don't be like that, Abby. I'll have a seat specially sterilized for you, okay? I'll even put up a glass pane if it makes you feel any safer from the _geeeerrrrrmmm_ ghosts."

Abner sighed. "I still don't understand why you tend to be so _desperate_ for my approval when I am so ill equipped to give it. There are _some _germs that cannot be fought with house hold cleaners."

"It's just because you're one of the few that plays _coy_ with me. Who besides Abner Van Slyke, doesn't like a Circus?"

To all the people that have called me flamboyant in my 27 years of life (and half a year of unlife), let me just say: Fuck you, _this_ is flamboyant. And it was quickly making me want to vomit even worse than Magnus's limp-wristed flinging of our hand-held storage container. What was he hoping to accomplish by this? Was he planning on shaking us up like a soda so he could watch us explode?

Casimiro, without warning, started clawing at the bag frantically, both of his hind paws smushing down on my face as I yowled in protest. "I knew it!" he spat. "I knew it, Fin. God...I dunno how I missed it...My French must be rusty...oh crap. Crap crap crap crap."

"WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?" Casimiro's feet connecting with my face for even a brief second was hard to bear in the first place, but this was simply too much.

".._._ It's a fucking Circus. _The _fucking Circus..oh fuck..."

Suddenly, Abner and Magnus started talking again but I couldn't hear what they were saying under Casimiro's frantic muttering. Amidst the chaos, Finas finally lost his temper and snapped in a _not too polite_ voice.

"Shut up, the both of you! I can't make out a thing!"

When Finas ceased to be polite, I got the sense that you'd better be pretty worried.

"Oh I just can't resist any more. I simply _have_ to see them," I caught Magnus's trill, which was said in the same tone as a brat who'd chosen to peek into their Christmas presents months in advance.

Finas released a hiss so savage it reminded me of steam releasing from a combustion engine. Do not try this at home. No sane person would ever hold three scared, pissed off vampire bats in the magical equivalent to a _sock _and then just blatantly attempt to open it with an anticipatory grin in his voice. Magnus sounded like he was expecting hugs and kisses not the mauling that was sure to ensue.

"Try to control yourself. Not that it's my problem, but if you open it out here, they'll die."

"Come in with me then, just for a second, won't you? I want to make sure everything is in order. Not that I don't trust you, Abby, I'm just used to dealing with _shady characters_, you know."

Abner released another sigh, this one long and drawn out as if he were hoping to delay this just a bit longer with the sheer amount of breathe he could push through his windpipe. His ferret made several squeaking noises but he waved it off. "This was _your _idea in the first place," he admonished dryly. "Don't tell me you're afraid of clowns now."

_Everyone_ is crazy, aren't they? There is not _one_ sane person left in this universe. Back home its people like_ Worth__,_ here it's people like._...that_. And _that_. Fuck this, I wish I had stayed dead.

The journey was not far. I didn't even have time to dwell on the sea-saw way Magnus was tilting us. The guy must've walked with weird skip in his step, which judging by the character of his voice, didn't exactly astound me.

I was immediately hit by a train-wreck of clashing smells. Maybe it wasn't as keen yet as Finas's or Casimiro's but my sense of smell was still _different_ than from before I died. I had never noticed scents like this, been able to _taste_ them in my mouth. They weren't good tastes, however. There was an overpowering odor of decaying magic, like the discomfort I experienced around Hanna magnified times ten hundred, animal dung, sawdust, stale peanuts, and a mysteriously sickening sugary aftertaste that always seemed to cling to fairgrounds, carnivals and circuses. I had not been to many in my childhood, as my mother had an OCD complex that rivaled Abner's, but I still recognized it with nostalgia.

_Circuses_. I began to think, who would sell vampires to a circus? What kind of Circus would _hold_ vampires? The questions even in my mind were heavy and looming like rain clouds, as if the surroundings did not _want_ them to be asked.

I felt a surge of catharsis as we met some kind of shade. There was still artificial light but the beating rays of the sun were suddenly distinguished with the same rapidity of a thumb flicking a lighter. It wasn't just me either; I could feel Casimiro and Finas relaxing too, if only a little, in relief.

"_Ughhh"_ I pricked my ears at Abner's low guttural exclamation of pure uncut disgust. I could imagine him seizing up like I did whenever Worth was in a three mile radius, stomping in tense robotic strides.

"Oh _hush_ you, I just had the floors cleaned."

"_Hardly,_" said Abner in that same quality which suggested he'd just been slapped in the face with a rotten fish.

"Ah! Here we are! The honeymoon suite!"

Well, we already covered the pleasant beach cruise; now let's delve into our childhoods. Ever dump out a huge bag full of marbles onto a black top and watch them scatter?

Finas, Casimiro, and I collapsed in an unceremonious billowing heap with Casimiro letting out a strangled screech and immediately throwing his back into a hump like a pissed off alley cat, all the while, baring his enormous fangs as he skidded, flapping uselessly to a stop. For the first time I was actually able to see the wreck Abner's bullet had made of his wing and shoulder. It looked like a good portion of the flesh had just dissolved from brown fluff into formless red gore.

If my stomach were still alive, it would've been churning inside me. Thankfully I didn't need to look at it long as Magnus scooped him up and threw him in something that looked like a wooden crate.

"Holy Christ," I said in a tiny mewl as I watched Finas all but roll off the raised platform we had been dumped upon before he was reunited with his companion.

"What the-"

My voice was soon cut off into a panicked squeal as I felt a hand blindly grasp around me as if I were a squirming newborn puppy. There was time for much wriggling as that clutching agent of greediness brought me in closer, my tiny head bowing in shock-induced fear and my large ears going flat as window blinds against my skull.

That was the first time I saw the Ringmaster's face.

It's not like I'm not _used_ to seeing weird faces. Veser, for instance, and his _winning smile_ are often the first thing I see when I wake up in the evening, and if that doesn't make you practically piss yourself, you're a better man than I, and probably have a harpoon sharpened and at the ready.

But this face wasn't just odd in appearance; actually it _wasn't_ odd in appearance at all. If it had been ..._real_, it would've been boyish, even handsome, but the smooth quality of the bone white skin reminded me of a wax model or a bad CGI graphic. The muscles didn't move right. It was too little flesh draped over too much skeletal frame. I could tell by the way the enormous folds of his brightly colored, but ratty clothing draped off his body that his physique made Worth look like Finas. I could only see his upper torso, but he was still a full head above Abner. He must've had legs like stilts to match his _spidery_ arms.

"This is nothing particularly remarkable" he said in an amused voice, his thin lips pulling back to reveal his leer. "Many like this have come and gone, though this must be the runt of the litter, eh"?

He didn't have fangs. His teeth were neat squares, _perfectly_ cut, like dentures. But for some reason, Magnus's grin which showed on his snarling mouth as well as through his yellow-green eyes reminded me of a fox with rabies. This image was solidified by the ridiculously long tresses of candy apple red hair that flowed from the brim of his _hideous _mauve top hat. They reached down past what I could see of his collarbone and were too bright and crispy-dry looking to be anything else but a wig. His suit was a hodge-podge mix of clashing shades of the color purple that made the Graphic Design major in me want to curl up in a ball and sob.

That suit _offended _me deeply, and if I had been able to breathe I would've been using all my energy to rip as much of those ugly purple sleeves as I possibly could. It would've been my duty as an artist to expunge it from the face of the earth.

Somewhere in the background I heard Casimiro ranting at the top of his lungs, making all kinds of ambitiously violent threats from outside the cage bars, but no one seemed to be listening to him. I couldn't concentrate on it if I tried. Magnus's features were both creepy and fascinating…it was like a car crash. You couldn't look away.

"That one isn't very old," said Abner from afar as the tips of Magnus's fingers sunk into my fur, picking at it, inspecting every inch of my fluffy red body.

I didn't like touching people to begin with so this, to me, was_ incredibly_ invasive. It was almost scarier than Abner's gun. At least Abner hadn't manhandled me too much. I also wasn't used to being this fucking _small._

"It still has its fang-holes. Hasn't even had a bite out of a person yet-," Abner started to explain in a way that reminded me of a dry British biologist on TV. But Magnus wasn't interested in the hard facts, it seemed.

"But it's _SO CUTE_. Aww, Abby, how do you _KILL_ things like this?"

_You're about to do worse if you don't loosen you're fucking grip,_ I thought, beginning to feel dizzy and sick, and terrified to boot. The thought of trying to communicate with my captor was laughable and crazy, it was similar to the concept of trying to commune with a Komodo dragon.

"You kill them too," said Abner without a hint of guilt. "You just do it slower."

"_Hahehahha! _So true. You know me _so-o_ well." With that Magnus started spreading my wings, holding me up by the tips of my fingers and making me shriek in panic. "It certainly has a voice for the theater."

"L-LET ME GO YOU F-FUCKER!" I finally caterwauled, with a tremble in my voice.

"Oh but only one little toothie, Abner? Why, it seems you've procured me a defective vampire."

That was when Magnus started trying to poke around my mouth with his disgusting fingers and that, my friends, is when I _lost _it. There's a reason I don't bite people. It's not that I'm trying to be Conrad the Friendly Vampire. I mean, the thought of killing someone doesn't thrill me, but...it's the act of _putting my mouth_ on another person's body, biting it and sucking fluid out of it that grosses me out.

"SCREEEEE!" I cried, utterly defying what I just explained by snapping my fang down on as much of Magnus's flesh as I could reach and burying it inside like a sieve, my teeth gnashing violently. Looking back on it that kind of defeated the purpose, but I had been poked, prodded and generally _messed _with and this was my first natural reaction. I had no control over it.

Even though my lone fang is tiny in comparison to the ones Casimiro and Finas have, it's still pretty damn huge and sharper than any syringe, I'll have you know, it was_ respectably _big.

It should have hurt, the way I was twisting it through his skin like that. It would've hurt any normal person and possibly compelled them to drop me.

Still gnawing, my blood ran cold when I heard Magnus's high pitched, helium laugh. It was long and loud and filled up the air like poisonous gas. A part of me had hoped that this would be my first encounter with real blood, that I had finally conquered this phobia that made other vampires laugh at me and forced me to depend on Worth. You know, like I could finally get that out of the way in the heat of the moment? But that didn't happen for one simple reason: Magnus didn't bleed. I was breaking his skin, but no blood came out.

…What the_ fuck?_

I was utterly distracted by this anomaly, so much so that I missed the next exchange between Magnus and Abner. Before I could so much as twitch my whiskers, I was being flung through the air again, and then I hit the ground like a red furry hacky-sack, bristly pieces of straw poking into the soft flesh of my wings and tangling into my fur. The cage door slammed shut.

As soon as I could, I scrabbled backwards, my wings scissoring frantically to duck away from that grasping hand again in mindless, animalistic fear. Was this how gerbils in a pet store felt with all those children reaching in and then carelessly throwing them back? I didn't have to worry though, it wasn't me Magnus was trying to get at.

I don't know how he accomplished it; he must've been stronger than he looked. A _lot _stronger. With just the tips of his spider-like fingers which poked out of horrid fingerless gloves, he grabbed the scruff of Finas's neck and brought him out as if he were handling a kitten.

Finas was _not_ a kitten. If Adelaide had been able to nearly rip my fucking face off in bat form, Finas _should've_ been able to just throw the guy with one swipe of his wings. But for whatever reason, that wasn't happening.

Over the ringing in my ears I didn't even try to focus in on Abner and Magnus's analysis. I took the time to glance around the cage, my eyes widening when I saw Casimiro lying like a discarded child's play thing, hardly moving. The straw around him was covered in drying blood.

I tried to move closer but realized that though his body was limp, his neck was taut, and his face was full of rage and something that neared hysteria. As he stared out of 'wooden' panels at his captive friend and I immediately backed off. The last time I had seen Casimiro _that_ angry he had been a spectral demon, threatening to tear through my 'hollow rotten shell' of a friend. Bat or not I wasn't eager to approach.

Trying to force myself to calm down while the fur on my spine stood straight up, I finally attempted to tune in on what Abner and Magnus were talking about.

"...This is simply more than I ever could've hoped for Abby, what_ year_ do you think this is?"

It sounded like he was choosing wine, not holding an incredibly irritated supernatural entity by the scruff of the neck.

"I've dated records of him from at least as far back as the British Industrial Revolution," said Abner in that same monotone.

"We've never had one anywhere _near_ that old...it'll take weeks to deplete it all" Magnus said in rushed elation. Abner didn't reply as though the comment, to him, was irrelevant.

Finas, managing to retain his dignity even in the most unlikely of situations, was absolutely still for the entirety of this. That was until the man attempted to put him back in the cage to retrieve Casimiro. Then he was anything_ but_ still. His voice remained callous and booming despite the fact that it was coming out of a significantly smaller mouth.

"Do _NOT_ touch him!"

Experiencing flashbacks of Adelaide's flashing talons, I folded my wings in close and cowered as Finas lunged, a blue-gray blur like a bullet.

But those slender, effeminate hands simply flicked him away with as much ease as a mean spirited three year old flicking a ladybug off a blade of grass. I got the sense that this usually _didn't _happen, and Finas looked just as surprised as I was when he landed with a flat _SMACK_ that twisted my guts into pretzels. His wings were crinkled like an umbrella bent by a strong wind, shaking his head to clear it as he tried to lift himself back on to his paws. Magnus had shrugged off a vampire bat the size of a small falcon in one fluid motion.

Upon being grabbed, the sheer torrent of vile language spewing from Casimiro's mouth was so _toxic _that it does not bear repeating, and besides it was said in so many different languages and dialects that I couldn't write it out even if I had all the time in the world to burn and could pay a professional translator with incredibly ambiguous morals to do it.

Apparently he hadn't come to the same conclusions Finas had, and despite his injury he flapped constantly with one wing, his legs kicking to scratch anything they could reach and his sabre-teeth knocking as they continuously tried to snap at Magnus's hands, presumably to devour them in one gulp, moving like a terrier on speed. Have you ever seen the movie Gremlins? Yeah.

Casimiro's voice was so loud that I only caught snatches of Magnus's stream of excitedly detached commentary. If Finas had been like fine wine, he was acting as if Casimiro was an incredibly rare kind of truffle. I gaped as two of his fingers _dared_ to forcibly spread open the lids of Casimiro's dead eye, even as his face was being clawed. Magnus didn't give any sign that the slices were hurting him.

"..Simply magnificent, this _wealth_…It even has the _scar._ Now I understand those prices, Abner. How did you accomplish this?"

"Fairly easily, it flew straight into my face while I was trying to dispatch the little one," said Abner modestly. "It destroyed one of my favorite rifles however," he added in despondence, sounding as if his puppy had run away.

"Easily replaced with the kind of banking _you'll _be doing tonight. I won't even make you pay for your ticket to the show," when Abner neglected to appear thrilled and impressed by the notion, Magnus pressed on.

"I doubt this little guy is going to be participating though; we don't want it needlessly overexerting itself...hehhehe_heheheh."_

"-LET ME GO YOU MOTHERFUCKER! _VAFFANCULO! _I'LL TEAR YOUR BALLS OFF! I'LL DRAIN YOU-"! Casimiro screeched, looking more bristle than bat at this point and making as much ungodly racket as he could possibly manage. When Magnus slowly put him back in the cage, he writhed in fury that had no other outlet other than to throw a tantrum, sending pieces of straw flying everywhere.

Finas was immediately at his side, pressing down firmly but carefully on his chest with one paw, his voice a stern bark. His usual calm demeanor was strained, and even under the blanket of evenness in his tone, he sounded incredibly stressed out, which was understandable. We were_ all_ stressed out.

"Calm down, Cas! You'll aggravate the wound."

"_DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT AGGRAVATION!"_

It began to slowly dawn on me as I watched the lines of his face, that whatever Finas might've initially gathered about our predicament, it probably wasn't going exactly as he'd been planning. The four walls of the cage suddenly seemed incredibly huge and oppressing. With a start, I realized that on every available surface an intricate tapestry of squiggles that I vaguely, from my experiences with Hanna, identified as runes were wood-burned in. Other than that, the boards didn't look sturdy at all. They appeared practically rotten.

Was _that_ it? Were the runes making Casimiro and Finas weaker? Or was Magnus simply impossibly strong? At the very least, the magic would've prevented us from simply breaking the crate open_. Fuck,_ I thought, blinking as I felt as exhaustion weighed my small body down. _I'm not used to thinking about this shit. I wish Hanna were here. Oh God. I actually wish Hanna were here. I hope he's even alive._

My tiny bat fingers slipped through the panels; however, the electric shock I was expecting never came. My claws tried briefly to dig into 'wood' which gave no purchase as I saw our ride here slowly moving away with Magnus who chattered behind his heavy strides like a Pomeranian. He kept increasing his pace as if to outrun the other man in slow motion.

I don't know why, but my panic returned in a flood as I saw Abner leaving. It somehow made all this seem very final and without thinking, I suddenly cried out.

"Don't leave us here! You_ know_ it isn't fucking right!" Somewhere along the line, I had acknowledged that however vague, Abner _did _have a code of honor. He had almost mentioned it himself right before he'd tried to shoot me. He seemed to be ignoring me, however, never slowing his steps. My anger came up forcibly and sourly, like vomit. What good was it having a moral code if you were just going to blatantly ignore it?

"YOU CAN'T FUCKING LEAVE US HERE! I'm the one who's fucking DEAD, where the fuck is _your_ humanity?"

"It's useless Conrad he's not-," Finas broke in but I didn't want to stop clinging to this singular desperate hope, however naïve it was, and continued calling, my ears for the first time lifting from my head and pushing forward.

"I know you _DON'T_ normally do this. I know you don't fucking _do_ this!"

"Hehe_heh_, it's talking to you Abby."

Finally acknowledging my presence, Abner turned around and studied what must've been a red fluffy speck calling out to him from across the enormous warehouse. I hadn't realized initially how _big_ this place was; even if I were my normal size it would've been massive. It was so_ empty_ though. There seemed to be nothing in it except a door and the table where our cage rested. My voice echoed off every one of the room's four corners. There were no windows.

Abner paused. He had heard every word. I could just tell by the way his head was cocked, almost with the same mechanical curiosity as the ferret wrapped around his neck.

There was a moment of hesitation, and then something in those shoulders relaxed and he accompanied the Ringmaster out of the door. I didn't care what they talked about after that. I was bitter with disappointment. The last thing I registered before he disappeared from my view was his disgruntled remark.

"-_No_, I have to go home first and burn all my clothes."

The absence of Magnus's presence was like an incredible weight being lifted I felt it _physically_, like airline sickness, but I didn't ask whether the other two did or not. At that moment I didn't want to speak or listen. I was numb.

I had thought Abner was the worst thing my new 'life' had to offer, and I thought he was going to be the last thing I'd need to deal with, worst case scenario. But I knew now that wasn't true, I knew this man _Magnus_ was so much worse than Abner in every way conceivable, and I also was sure that Casimiro and Finas knew as little as I did about him.

The idea of helplessness disturbed and scared me, and I found myself drawing my wings in close, sliding down into the straw like a slowly sinking pebble cast, skipping out into a deep lake. The room was now utterly without light except for a tiny crack at the bottom of the door across the room where it glowed in a deliberate white slash.

Though I had no more trouble seeing than I usually did, everything was painted in a layer of fuzzy purple shadows. Despite the darkness, we were now well into the day, and I was more tired than I had ever been when I was alive or dead. But with all my worries and the restless tangle of circular questions, my mind would not find rest. I was also sore and hungry.

After musing miserably for several minutes, I slowly lifted myself to my tiny paws, crawling through the large interior of the cage to the corner where Casimiro and Finas were huddled. They had stopped talking, and Finas had apparently managed to quell Casimiro's anger, though the silence was _anxious_ and decidedly uncomfortable.

Finas's brow was furrowed in concentration while he looked down at Casimiro as if he were trying to decipher a complex puzzle. He drew his wings pensively, just like he did with his hands in his humanoid form.

"If you struggle you'll only make it worse."

"_Feh,_" Casimiro clicked his tongue carelessly, like a teenager spitting gum on a sidewalk. "Just do it, will ya?"

Finas simply nodded, and then I watched as he bent down and slowly started to spread Casimiro's damaged wing in a straight angle. The dark brown bat hissed under his breathe, but made no other noise, not even the expected slew of cursing. Finas paused, his muzzle lingering at the gaping place where fur bristled and flesh dissolved into still slick, slimy red gristle.

I wanted to look away in disgust. I couldn't even normally stand this kind of thing in movies or TV shows, but even in horrified enthrallment, my mind wouldn't shut up with the questions that were building up into a waterfall the size of Niagara falls. Hadn't Casimiro been shot _hours_ ago? Why wasn't it healing?

"Finas why-,"I began, but trailed off as Casimiro seized, his left wing's claws dragging into straw like a farming tool when Finas pushed his muzzle into the open well of red flesh and started slicing in with bright fangs. He used them like makeshift surgical tools as I watched in appalled fascination.

A second later the larger bat pulled back and spat something shiny out onto the straw which clinked faintly like discarded jewelry. It seemed to sizzle when it hit the ground and when I leaned in closer I realized they were tiny fragments of silver shrapnel.

Laboriously and methodically, Finas kept dipping his head shaggy back in; extracting more pieces and then quickly spitting them back out into a small glittering pile. He never held them in his mouth very long, and I could see why. The muscles in his face made it clear that even the small amount of contact was causing him immense pain, though it was nothing in comparison to Casimiro's silently agonized expressions.

Seeing this was maddening to me; I curled and uncurled my wings, unable to decide whether or not I should watch but always being sucked back into it anyway. By the time I finally decided, _Fuck this, I'm looking away_, it was already finished. Finas swept the silver pieces, along with an explosive flurry of straw from the smooth floor of the cage and out into the anonymous darkness.

The blue-gray vampire then lowered himself down onto the joints of his wings, and like bats I had seen once in a zoo exhibit, he hobbled closer to Casimiro. In a relaxed cat-like arc, Finas started running his tongue over the outside of the wound, and then smoothing over the fur surrounding it. The sleeker bat blinked dazedly, not really _seeing_ as he stared upward, but after a few minutes of this, his good eye cleared and his gaze shifted to watch Finas while he worked with an expression that totally and completely_ lacked_ the frenzied savagery he'd displayed beforehand.

_This is normal for them._ I realized distantly. This was something they did _all_ _the time_ probably after killing a couple hookers and just before calling it a night. As if to prove me right, Casimiro moved feebly, sitting up just enough to bend down and start flicking his tongue over the ruffled helmet of mahogany hair crowning the top of Finas's broad head.

I was incredibly anxious to ask them a multitude of questions I'd been saving since the moment we'd been stuffed in the bag, but no part of me wanted to interrupt this. It was a tiny patch of _normalcy_ and even if it didn't belong to me, it was comforting. It made the dark emptiness of the vast warehouse seem less like it was going to materialize from the thick air and swallow me like a giant black lagoon monster.

Finas must've been on the same wavelength however, because after a minute or two more, he withdrew from his companion, turning to face me. Casimiro paused indecisively in his bed of straw, as if he was unsure whether or not to try to lift himself up. However, he resolved to lie there in the most dignified position he could manage, one wing discarded and the other folded neatly at his side.

"Ask what you will then," Finas said tiredly, asserting me with two maroon eyes just as he had in the parking lot. There was something about the way Finas _looked _at me that made me feel like I was some kind of pimply 13 year old kid, sitting in the principal's office. I wondered if he had that effect on everyone. I then chewed on my lower lip and tried to organize the thoughts piled up in my head like a list of constitutional grievances. Casimiro snorted irreverently, flicking a piece of straw back and forth between his claws like a pair of loaded dice.

"You gonna to start talking, Snaggletooth, or are you just gonna sit there taking up space?"

"Give me a minute!" I snapped, trying to ignore the insulting moniker that had apparently become my fallback nickname. _Great, _I had always_ longed _formy dental problems to define the way people see me. "I'm thinking." The first question finally bubbled back up to the surface as I glared.

"First of all, what_ is_ this place?" I remembered Casimiro's ranting while we were all still in the bag and that had stayed with me, poisoning my thoughts like lead. The brown bat sighed and looked at Finas with an expression that obviously said _'Where do I even begin?'_ But Finas just shook his head disapprovingly, a perfectly synced _'You're on your own'._

"Look, kid, I don't have all the answers or anything but I've heard_ stories_ okay? Stories about a...a circus. Cirque des Damnes. Y'know, I never really thought about the name. I'm kinda rusty on my French after living in the States so long."

"And they aren't," Finas added disdainfully as if to suggest a number of things, beginning and ending with the fact that he was _not_ rusty with his French, "the kind of stories _I _habitually linger for."

"Yeahhh," said Casimiro, dropping his eyes guiltily and confirming my theory that Finas had the ability to make _anyone_ feel blameworthy.

"Guess you could say I picked 'em up in less than reputable places. Doesn't matter though...the point is...the Circus of the Damned in an old legend...'S usually told after a hit on something or a few too many blood-laced beers, okay? Everyone _knows_ the story, but they keep telling it anyway. More modern vampires like me and Finas...We don't believe in stuff like that anymore. To us, it's like... Telling you that the Easter Bunny or what-the-fuck ever exists and expecting you to roll with it."

"Wait don't you mean Santa Claus?", I said, thinking that the Easter Bunny was a rather weak metaphor to choose, given the options.

"What are you talking about"? queried Casimiro, his brow furrowing. "Babbo Natale _is_ real."

For a moment I was utterly at a loss for how to respond, but I needed only to glance over at Finas's face to get the message that I _shouldn't_ say anything to dispute that.

Casimiro shook his head as if to clear it of "nonsense" and pushed on. "So we're kinda..."

"-Surprised" finished Finas, bowing his head. "It takes much to surprise us. After so many years, we're understandably a bit…flummoxed."

"Flummoxed," I echoed in complete disbelief, then my voice rose suddenly releasing my pent up anger which knew no bounds. "_'FLUMMOXED'?_ WE'RE STUCK IN A FUCKING MAGICAL CAGE, TRAPPED IN SOME KIND OF...I DON'T KNOW... EVIL CIRCUS...AND YOU'RE TELLING ME YOU'RE FUCKING _'FLUMMOXED'_?"

Finas blinked. "It's simply a matter of word choice, and do _not_ think that we will continue our explanation with you _whining_ at the top of your lungs."

Casimiro rolled his eyes "Seriously man, _calm down. _You're like some kinda pissy little dog."

Crushed, I immediately snapped my mouth shut, but it didn't quell my roiling resentment at the two for holding shit like this back for so long. Finas used my silence to press on slowly and deliberately like a tortoise moving towards a fresh cabbage.

"Tell him what kind of things you've heard about the Circus, Casimiro."

"Well," said the other bat, quirking an eyebrow (_Yes_ vampire bats have eyebrows and they see with their eyes, not echolocation. Don't ask me how it works. The only thing I'm sure of is that neither God nor evolution has anything to do with it).

"It's nothing _good_, let me tell ya. Apparently, it's some kind of ancient pow-wow for ugly supernatural entities. Ya know, demons, ghouls, hags, witches...that sorta thing. It's uh...lessee, built on an entrance to Hades... Hell, whatever floats yer boat and it's kinda-..."

"Wait" I interrupted "Aren't all those things _real?_ Why would you think they were just a legend"?

"Well _yeah_" Casimiro said, sounding irritated, "But they're not usually the _outgoing_ types. The idea of them getting together is weird…. let me get a word in if it's not too much trouble"?

"Sorry" I muttered unapologetically, falling silent.

He made circular gestures with his winged paw. "Uh...Fuck...how do I say this? It's like a halfway point between the two worlds. It's not really supposed to exist ya know? It's like something that would make your nerdy 'wizard' friend cream his jeans."

"_Hanna,_" I spat hotly. Of course Finas and Casimiro wouldn't care about casualties; they killed people all the time. I felt a little less self conscious about my apparent friendship now that I was almost sure Hanna was gone off the face of the Earth.

"_Whatever._ Anyw-a-y. It's not just a Circus, it's like a ..._thing_. It's a meeting place for them...a uh...gathering place where they can feed and I dunno…Do demonic things. Plan Armageddon. Socialize."

"How informative," I muttered, to which Casimiro responded by bending the other tiny fingers on his bat claw and giving me the bird, or as close to it as he could come. He seemed annoyed by the fact that he wasn't within range and therefore couldn't inflict the necessary physical damage to accentuate his points.

"Shut up, 'nyway that's pretty much all I know. I mean I've heard of a Ringmaster, but this guy," his tone suddenly became a dangerous shadow of the rage he'd felt earlier. "This miserable c_unt,_ Magnus...I've never heard of him. Neither me or Finas have."

"Finas nor_ I,_" corrected the larger bat dryly.

I felt another tug of heavy disappointment threatening to send me crashing right through the cage's straw-covered floor. That eliminated like 30 percent of the questions I'd been planning to ask.

"So...neither of you have any idea how he managed to kick your asses?"

The awkward silence that followed was painful even for me, and I immediately regretted saying that. Neither vampires uttered a word until I rained them with nervous apologies.

"I...I'm sorry I didn't mean it like _tha_t, I was...what I was trying to say is..."

Finas flicked his paw, but regardless, still looked extremely offended. "_I would think so._ Anyway, I do have some theories if you're _interested _in hearing them-."

"Yes _yes,_" I said quickly, in a meek rush.

"It's...hm. It seems given your inexperience I'll have to go into greater detail," he looked up "Conrad, did your friend ever explain to you how magic actually works?"

I frowned. "Uh..._no._ He was kind of..." I trailed off, a bit sad that I was now referring to Hanna in the past tense.

"I see. Well perhaps it's for the best. That brand of magic is considered a... perversion. Magic in its most basic form, is simply a physical...or rather ethereal embodiment of a creature's will. Their life force."

I was utterly silent, feeling like I was in some kind of twisted version of my 7th grade Biology class.

"That force is given off by every living thing, and sometimes unliving things. It can be harnessed, molded even occasionally bottled up."

"-yeah by lousy cheaters like fucking Abner" Casimiro growled irately, but Finas, habitually silent, was determined to speak his piece.

"A _vampire's_ magic however is more subtle than say, what a witch or a warlock uses...it's naturally developed, simply an...evolution of the life force a person originally had," he blinked and looked me over as if to ask _are you still with me?_

I nodded vaguely, whether I was or not, I wanted to hear more of this.

"The closest metaphor I can use is a second layer of skin. It is formed from the life force we take from others. Our own energy, which encases the soul, has almost completely depleted and therefore we must consume blood, the physical form of energy, to survive. To keep the soul stable."

"Which is why the bagged crap won't sustain you for very long, kid. The life force in blood dwindles the longer it stays outside a body. The older ya get the hungrier you'll be. You're gonna need it fresh from the tap, heh." Casimiro added.

I must've made an amusing face at that, because he laughed coldly. "Sucks for you, doesn't it? Heh heh."

_He was WAITING to use that pun._ I thought, feeling utterly betrayed.

"Anyway," Finas continued with as much patience as he could muster. "Back to your original question, I have surmised that perhaps this Magnus creature, for he is certainly not human, is a type of supernatural entity that can penetrate through Casimiro and I's magic, thus making our strength-."

"Fucking useless," Casimiro finished, sighing. "It's not just age, Baby-bat, it's takes practice and training to get where we are on the food chain. That's why it's so frustrating that the fairy can just throw us around like we're..._you _or something."

"Thanks... I really needed that boost of confidence," I snapped sarcastically.

I think it just makes him_ happy_ to insult me. I wondered briefly what would happen if Casimiro and Worth ever met. Perhaps it'd just cause a chemical reaction and somehow result in an actually decent human being.

"Don't mention it," he replied cheerfully.

Drenched with this downpour of new information, I silently chewed on the ideas for a moment, attempting to force my brain, which up until a few months ago didn't even _believe_ in magic, to digest all this.

At least Finas had worded it in a logical way. It made it slightly easier for me. I've always been kind of a Discovery Channel kid. I never believed in stuff like Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny, or God. I didn't _try_ to plant my feet so firmly in the earth. I just never quite ..._got_ it for some reason.

"So...what do you mean by supernatural entity? I mean...what do you think he..._ is_?"

"We're not sure," said Finas immediately. But he and Casimiro shared a look that roused my suspicion. They _did_ have an idea; they just didn't want to say anything about it to me yet. I thought about pushing the issue but I decided it was better to ask a fresh question than to have them shut down on me.

"So he wants us to… _perform_ right?" I said unsteadily. It seemed a ridiculous concept but what else use would three bats be in a Circus? Unless we really _were_ meatloaf and he planned on eating us, which judging by the way he had regarded our welfare wouldn't have surprised me one bit.

"That'll be _somethin' _to see," said Casimiro. I thought it might've been smug but he actually sounded faintly bitter. I got the sense that we had both come to the same conclusion. If Casimiro couldn't perform _why _would Magnus bother keeping him around? I got the feeling that it wasn't out of mercy or goodwill. "In my opinion, you'd make a _great _clown. Connie the Dentally Challenged Vampire. Lots a' laughs."

I didn't even bother responding to that. I could tell by his tone of voice that it was just a half-assed attempt to distract me.

"Casimiro, why do you think Magnus was so _interested_ in your eye?"

The Italian shrugged and pointedly turned away from me. "Who knows what that fuckhead is thinking." He said carelessly as if the question bored him.

I wasn't about to give up that easily, but Finas interrupted me mid "But-" placing his spindly bat-fingers on the joint of my left wing.

"I think that's enough questions for now. We don't know how long Magnus is planning on letting us rest and we should sleep while we are able."

This was an obvious deflection, but they weren't exactly trying to _hide_ it either. They were either going to talk or they weren't, there was nothing I could do about it. Besides, I couldn't say that it wasn't a perfectly reasonable excuse. I was _so_ tired and I just wanted to let go, at least for a little while of the grotesque array of realities that had been thrust in my face.

"...Okay."

I looked up for the first time really getting a good layout of our prison. It was as large as one that would've held say, a huge macaw, but still not really big enough for three vampire bats. The only thing that kept it from looking like a pet cage was the lack of a food or water tray for obvious reasons. There was, however, a thin wooden bar stretched from either side and hung a little ways off the ground.

For a moment I was confused about what it was for until Finas answered my question by beginning to climb on top of it, lingering with perfect grace for a second on the pole and then swinging down, his wings folded neatly at his sides. He was as efficient about it as a Swiss army knife.

_That's right,_ I thought dumbly, _Bats sleep upside down…maybe that's why I couldn't rest much earlier._

I delayed my inevitable humiliation by watching, wincing as Casimiro tried to do the same thing. Apparently he was so used to doing this that he hadn't really thought it through, and before Finas could move to help him, he crashed backwards, flat on his back, landing with a flat_ THUD_ and mumbling profanity under his breathe. Apparently it was harder to do with one wing.

I'm sorry to say I almost snickered, I mean, how many times had Casimiro mocked _me?_ But Finas gave me a warning look that made my smile flip completely around. After a few seconds I could see why.

"Cas," said Finas looking down at his companion, who after a dazed couple of seconds had deigned to curl himself into a tightly wound ball in the straw.

Finas looked extremely uncomfortable, lifting his muzzle in thinly veiled concern "..Would you...would you like me to come down there-."

"_Nah_. I'm good"

Casimiro ground out instantly with a steak-knife edge in his tone.

"Hang with _F_r_uitbat _over there, I'm sure it'll give him a nice big hard on." He spoke with a wounded kind of venom that stung me more than the insults. After that he went quiet and refused any more conversation with either of us.

Finas gave a very small sigh, looking uncertain for a second and then drawing back into himself, offering me a calm stare.

"Can you get up on your own?"

"I'll...I'll try," I said with more confidence than I felt. After a few awkward attempts I managed to crawl unsteadily over the pole, not perching but rather clinging in a decidedly non bat-like manner with all four legs...toe by toe I gradually lowered myself down. I was shaky but I didn't do a repeat of Casimiro's crash.

For a moment we hung in silence, and I couldn't keep my eyes from falling on the still form of the wounded bat huddled in the corner of the cage. My eyes flicked back to Finas quickly to check if he was asleep yet, but I found that his gaze had been trained in the same place mine had been.

I was hesitant, not incredibly graceful in social or emotional situations, but I felt like I should say _something._

"_Er...what's his problem_?" I whispered.

Finas took a deep unnecessary breathe. Breathing didn't pump air anymore, but it was handy for collecting one's thoughts. "He's fine. Do not concern yourself". He paused, as if debating on how much more he should say but then shook his head.

"You should get some sleep, Conrad. Personally I am at my limit. Good day." With that he tucked his head into his wing.

I closed my eyes and mimicked what Finas had done, burying my face into the really kind of nice soft, leathery skin of my wings. It was warm and pliable, like a fine car interior or a leather sofa.

I mused on Finas's voice as I lingered on the edges of unconsciousness. At times it could be very threatening, but it could also have this weird _silencing_ quality, wrestling the frayed tangles of thoughts in my head into something as neat as a yarn ball. He had a James Earl Jones kinda thing going on, except white and anonymously British...and more 'Mufasa' than 'Dark side of the force'. Yeah...definitely more Mufasa..._what?_ I had a childhood.

Vampires do not dream. With the complex break-down of universal forces swirling in my head I couldn't help but wonder the reason _why_ before unconsciousness that had been too long kept at bay killed me quietly in my sleep.

* * *

><p>Please leave a review and see the lovely preview art for this chapter over at <strong>SuperCatGirl<strong>'s Deviantart account!


	3. Chapter 3: Sad Excuse

**Awful Edges**

**Chapter Three: Sad Excuse**

Most people don't have a childhood that's exactly good or bad. Don't get me wrong, some do go through enough hard stuff in their kiddie years to mold their personality, like ground water carving out a cave, but _really_bad experiences…well, they're reserved for a lucky few. It's the kind of mark left on a person like Veser, I guess. He didn't need to spell it out for me, okay? I know it's none of my business but…it's not exactly hard to tell.

I can only guess that it's out of sympathy that I let him stay. I can't exactly relate to somebody like Veser, but I _do_ know what it's like when you've got no place to go. That, and I apparently have a strange _fascination_with welcoming mental and physical damage into my life. Since Hanna had decided to just burst in, I figured I might as well step aside and hold the door open for more abuse. Why the fuck not? Might as well not waste the cash on remodeling.

Anyway, _most _people…your typical 20-somethingish American doesn't have a bad childhood, they just… _have_ one, there's a legion of happy memories, sad memories, angry memories, but mostly a lot of uncomfortable moments, indecision and a good gray bulk of _meh_. However, whatever flavor, memories are what builds a person…you won't find me denying that.

In this one, the pavement was broken up under my red Sketchers, so I knew that we'd be close to the older part of town, Main Street, the shopping district. Every town has places like that.

Somehow despite being dragged by the hand, I managed to hop-skip every crack with oddball determination. Today there was no time for broken backs. My mother was determined to get somewhere and get there fast.

I didn't know how long we had been walking but I was starting to get tired. I got tired _really_ easily in those days, tired and confused. The medicine did a lot to inhibit my sense of _anything_really and I tended to float off into Nowhere Land until someone decided to snap their fingers and haul me back to reality.

Maybe she'd been too busy to snap, though, because the way she walked was her brand name worried, _wounded ostrich_shuffle , which I had unfortunately inherited, the _Achenleck_shuffle. It could be a dance if it wasn't so painfully awkward. It was, in addition, really cold out and Mother had made me wear a ridiculously large coat that almost matched my own body weight, so I imagine it was a bit like tugging an extremely heavy balloon.

Were we on our way to draw money from the bank? Or were we picking up a last minute delivery? It must've been some kind of _really_important errand or she would've taken the time to find somebody to watch me instead of bringing me along. I was pretty much a thorn in her side when it came to things like this. Well, I was a thorn in her side when it came to a lot of things.

The only time I looked up from the cracks in the sidewalk was to stare at one of the many blazing triangular flags flapping seductively around lamp posts and hanging from power lines.

The black skeleton of a dinosaur curled on several of the banners, and in different colors they were littered all throughout Main Street, advertising a new exhibit at our local museum in bold block print. I obviously _really_ wanted to go, for a variety of reasons. Beginning with…well…dinosaurs were _awesome_, and there'd be decorations… and cheese and crackers …but I figured it'd be better to ask when we weren't in such a rush and she was likely to be in a better mood.

It was the sensation of losing her hand that finally brought me out of it.  
>I'd been holding on very tightly, my arm sore from always being lifted a little ways off the ground by her long business-like strides and forced to dance forward as a marionette did.<p>

When I felt my pale, sweaty palm meet the open air, I spun and almost tripped on one of those devious cracks in the pavement, but managed to clumsily stop myself despite the way my head was snapping back and forth in frantic search for her. There was a terrible sensation of _panic,_when I stared around the deserted street, shops closed for Sunday and no cars at the meters. There weren't even any stay cats lumbering from the gutters.

I don't know what scared me more, the idea of a Stranger coming up and talking to me like she always said they would, or the idea of a Stranger _not_coming up and talking to me. It was like a surreal X Files episode. Apparently while I'd been day dreaming in a medicated haze, the world had simply decided to pick up and leave without me.

Biting my lip and digging the toe of my shoe into the ground, I called out for her a couple of times and trembled when my voice carried and echoed emptily. I continuously glancing around, not brave enough to really leave that little island of pasty white sidewalk where I'd been abandoned, but not calm enough to just stay in one place, I paced for a moment in obsessive nervousness, a mouse in an aquarium cage.

When I felt her soft hand close on mine again, painted nails and all, I almost gasped in relief. I knew she'd be angry that I'd wandered off, but it didn't stop me from burrowing my face in her scratchy knitted gray coat sleeve and hanging on for dear life. My face was flushed in the freezing weather and I was anxious to see her expression when she held me, but when my eyes traveled up, I went stiff as a board in her grasp, which quickly became crushing. My mother had rarely ever touched me, even as a child, but now she did not release me even when I tried to move away from her.

Elene Achenleck had small, narrow brown eyes, just like I did before I changed, but the eyes I found when I looked up were flat and iridescent, not in the way irises should have been. They reflected the colors and surfaces all around them, like pockets of glittering oil. Purplish pink on the surface, the shell of an insect, but, red underneath. _Red_ red, not red like my Sketchers or a messy midway popsicle but red like _blood_.

A high cold laugh pierced my ear drums, and an impossible snarl twisted her pale, angular face. Her dark lips curled up to reveal fangs the size of daggers that were ridiculously out of proportion with her tiny pouting mouth. No human ever made an expression like that and certainly not any mother I had ever known. She was a jackal.

Adelaide.

Purple-black hair tousled like a lion's mane, holding my tiny wrist hard enough to break it, she lunged. Her jaws SNAPPED! shut like a bear trap an inch from my face and for a moment the entire sidewalk, the entire _world_seemed to waver. I stumbled forward, my foot catching on another pothole as I met the ground with my knees harshly. In the distance gunshots rang out, and two voices howled at once.

_"RUN CONRAD!"_

_It's too late_, I thought. _Oh fuck, it's too late!_  
>I scrambled desperately to my feet and ran as fast as I could. Behind me Adelaide raced, approaching with her mouth wide open like a wolf, chanting in a ravenous caw.<p>

_"Run as fast as you can little faggot, it won't be fast ENOUGH!"_

_"PLEASE PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE!"_ I realized in my vermilion cloud of panic that my voice had been croaked out, barely audible, somehow _bubbled_up from my throat.

As Adelaide's bouncing laugh rang out again like a metallic echo in the mouth of a cave, I couldn't help but slow. Both of my hands rose to cup my throat and grasp at the gore that had become the tendons of my neck. Burning fluid seeped out rapidly from between my fingers before I could staunch it.

There was a gash there, _of course there was_, and just like before, all my life was running out, on my hands, on my clothes, tumbling to the concrete below to fill the cracks in the pavement.

When I looked again, Adelaide was still there, but it wasn't _her_ anymore. She- He- _It_ was ethereal, rising inhumane in a fuming cloud of white fire, claws outstretched to me. When they reached me, those yellow-green eyes burned ghostly white in the place where black pupils should have been. The white had eclipsed them, a _tumor_.

"OHGAWD!"

_THUD!_

Upon waking, I failed to remember that not only did I no longer have arms, but I was also hanging upside down. This resulted in my little bat body forming a very similar relationship to the ground that a _sack of flour_had. The first thing I saw when the muted colors of the cage started staying in their lines again was Finas's half lidded, exasperated expression, a perfect semi circle of faintly disapproving maroon.

The silvery bat was in exactly the same position he'd been in when he'd tucked his head into his wing, though now his boxed, bearded muzzle was visible, holding no expression except a kind of detached interest. Finas had this habit of looking at me like I was a badly made fourth grade science fair experiment, and I did not appreciate it after waking up _that_ way. In fact I can't remember many other times when I've been a worse mood, and I've woken up from _dying_.

"I suppose you found that fucking _HILARIOUS_," I growled up at him, just waiting for Casimiro to pop in at moment with some kind of _comment_.

"No" he replied frankly, not even blinking.

I stared.

Finas was stone-faced. "Forgive me, I hadn't actually noticed it until I saw you on the ground...how did you sleep?"

I was utterly silent, leaning on the joints of my wings, and craning my neck up at him in a way that was sadly reminiscent of a drowned turkey.

Vampires, as I said before, do not dream. Vampires aren't _supposed_ to dream. I haven't had a dream since Adelaide killed me…and I haven't had a dream like _that_in my entire life. If I didn't know any better I'd say in order to accomplish something like that you'd need to have VIP access to Luce Worth's stash.

I frowned, staring back up at the larger bat._Why would he ask something like that so calmly? I think…I think he knows. Did it happen to him too?_

"It was...fine," I mumbled, sounding about as convincing as you might've imagined. "J-Just more of the same."

But Finas didn't appear to be listening to me any longer; he was gazing out into the timeless blackness of the warehouse.

He had said 'Good Evening'…and that made me wonder what time it actually was. This place had no clocks, no anything except four panels, a pole and some straw, and we couldn't see enough light to even get an inclination of where the sun might be in the sky.

Not knowing what time it was _or_our location unsettled me even further; it was like we were floating in a void. If anyone back home decided to play a game of Where's Conrad, they wouldn't have been able to pin it on a map, I was almost sure of it. This place didn't seem real…maybe it really was built on an entrance to Hell.

I could feel that my fur was beginning to become frayed with how much time it was spending standing on end. The images from the dream continued to shuffle like a deck of cards in my head, Adelaide's freaky eyes and those long white, burning claws.

_I wish this was all a dream _, I thought, dread beginning to fill up my small body like brackish water into a dank well. It wasn't the first time I had thought that, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

Finally I began to move, albeit sluggishly. When was the last time I had eaten? Last week?

_Fuck I shouldn't have put it off so long,_ I thought, feeling hunger gnaw, acidic at the lining of my belly. _I hate going to see Worth...that's why. It's like going to fucking DMV...or the dentist. If they had homicidal tendencies and the staff__ refused to bathe._

I snuffled stagnant air, browsing in the straw awkwardly. I lifted my button muzzle as I realized for the first time that the overpowering smell of vampire blood (it has a different quality or believe me, I would've been drooling excessively the whole time) wasn't pervading the air.

In the left corner of the cage, I found the splayed form of Casimiro, still fast asleep. He had curled up into a ball as tight as yarn the last time I'd seen him, but apparently his subconscious had other ideas. He seemed to have been determined to take up as much space as possible, lying flat on his back with his legs in the air. I couldn't help a small muffled snigger, which was amazing because nothing else about this situation seemed very amusing.

My laughter soon ebbed however, when I took a closer look. His tiny hind paws were twitching like a dog chasing a rabbit in a dream, except rather than the lazy pawing and growling, they seemed to be peddling a rapid pace.

_Is he having a bad dream too?_

Occasionally his lip would curl, exposing fangs, and I decided that it would probably better to keep my distance. Just in case.

Nevertheless, I cautiously approached from the other side, and found what I had suspected. Since the silver had been removed, the wound was healing over fast, in comparison to a human. It was still raw, damaged muscle tissue but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore.

_Why the hell did he have to get shot anyway?_ I thought with a gush of intense frustration. _Now, no matter how much of an asshole he is to me I'll still feel like a dick._

"See anything you like, Faggletooth?" said Casimiro suddenly in a mock sultry purr. "Checking me out while I'm asleep?"

"You're disgusting," I sputtered in surprise, backing off. When exactly had he woken up? "I'm not into homosexuality OR bestiality."

"Pff," snorted Casimiro as if I had just asserted that the sky was green, dragging himself to his paws. "Who the hell do you think you're kiddin' anyway? What straight guy uses _Dove?_ Hell, me and Finas are prison bitches and even _we_use Old Spice."

"_Finas and I,_ and we're _NOT_," interrupted Finas, sounding embarrassed enough for the both of us. He fluttered down effortlessly from his perch, as I watched, mouth hanging open. _Jesus, he's good at that_. Despite his size, he glided like a tiny kite and landed like a bird.

The expression on his face as he glared at Casimiro wasn't exactly graceful, however. "Why do you _tell_people that?"

"I speak-a the truth," he replied, waggling his brow obnoxiously, his eye, a gleaming apple. Possibly of the same variety that killed Snow White.

Finas sighed. "If you say that one more time I'll break your other wing."

"Good morning to you too, _sweetie_," Casimiro purred, running his tongue over his own chest fur lazily. "How's it coming?"

The question was thrown straight over my head as if the three of us were playing ideological Monkey in the Middle, and I was the smallest brother…and, you guessed it, the monkey.

Finas sighed heavily, and for a moment he looked so _tired_, _mor__e_ tired than he should've been. Had he slept _at all_? I had seen him tuck his head into his wing, but I hadn't actually seen him fall asleep so…

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better…" he started, offering his companion that same flat stare that he'd given me, but Casimiro looked at him pointedly, almost severely. He immediately saw that it wasn't going to fly.

"…It…has been difficult," Finas murmured, shifting on his wings" There are _pieces_missing-"

Finas's words were cut off as his jaw suddenly snapped shut like the trunk of a convertible. His eyes widened slightly in surprise. Casimiro was about to add something too, but he went quiet and was soon making very nearly the same expression.  
>Where did the two pick up their annoying habit of just not finishing their sentences? Did they simply think that, being hundreds of years old they were just too fucking <em>cool<em>to carry on a proper conversation?

"What're you guys staring at?" I said irately, wrinkling my nose in confusion. There was absolute silence, until an impossibly loud raspy voice trumpeted through the air, making my hair stand on end.

"_Pardon, you lot hungry?_"

Finas and Casimiro's voices seemed to be on a normal level, but the difference in volume as those words BLASTED through the air was the difference between a fire engine and a smart car.

So needless to say, I totally flipped out and almost jumped out of my skin with my usual elegance, puffing up and crashing into the side of the cage as I blindly scrambled backwards. I didn't even noticed the expressions Finas and Casimiro were surely pulling as I sprayed them with straw.

"Sorreh, did I… surprise yeh?" said that rumbling, terrifying voice again, even louder in the cavernous echo of the…warehouse, whatever, the generic dark room we were currently locked in.

It didn't help that when I finally turned around, I was met with a pair of eyes almost the size of my entire head. They were little more than murky, inky brown puddles. They were sunken in with age, and slightly cinched in a manner that suggested a permanent resigned sadness…though at the moment they were also quirked in conjunction with shaggy "brows" to express confusion.

Underneath those eyes, a monstrous furry snout was suddenly looming towards me like some kind of deep sea vessel, the jowls flapped and exposed canines, yellowed and dulled with age. I stood horrified when those jaws opened…only to speak again in some kind of botched accent that was slurped out like that long panting pink tongue.

It was like it was trying, maybe, to be Southern, but somewhere along the way it had traveled too many American roads and been left out in the rain, tarnished, rusted, had become unrecognizable.

"...Ain't none o'ya gon say a word? Thought vampires were usually all words 'n discourse?"

The dog inquired in that same gravelly tone. One further inspection, once I got past the fact that it was being uttered by a giant, the twang was, in countenance, like an old man, slightly confused but not at all menacing. Having a creature so much bigger right up in my face like that was scary though, and surprisingly, I was the first one to speak, stuttering deftly.

"C-could you…maybe back up a bit?"

The snout retreated, and finally I was able to get a clear view of what we were dealing with. He turned out to be not really a snarling monster, but an old dog. A _very_old dog, a German Shepherd to be precise, who just happened to have the ability to talk.

If you're expecting me to be surprised, you're going to be in suspense for the rest of this story, because as hard as it is for some to believe, I do eventually adapt. Sometimes. Anyway, I'm used to talking animals by now. Though I wish I could meet a few that weren't either dogs (I'm a cat person), or terrifying demonic bats. Some friendly woodland creatures would really be a nice change of pace.

Though what really got me was the fact that the dog's fur was a pale silvery blue, with darker navy blue markings hacked across it as if with a careless palette knife, when it should've probably black and tan. For any artist, designing such a thing would've been under the influence of something heavy. Damn it, what was with all these whacky color schemes? Blue dogs, blue bats...

"You did manage to startle us," Finas responded before either Casimiro or I could get another word in. The large bat did not come closer but, he inclined his head towards the dog's drooping visage.

"But I do believe you mentioned sustenance?" He paused. "We are weak and have not fed in days. That would be greatly appreciated."

Casimiro frowned, probably at the suggestion of _weakness_and fearlessly hobbled right to the edge of the cage, his tiny claws grasping into the wood panels, sticking his nose out as far as it would go as the dog's eyes rolled lazily to regard him.

"Who the hell're you, puppy, to be feeding vampires? You work for that red-haired bitch?"

The dog's pointed ears flattened, and as they did so I noticed that one of them was completely shredded, and hung down in silver-blue tatters. I have an eye for detail when I'm not scared shitless.

"Ah'm assumin' by that, y'd mean Magnus...and yes..ah'm...under his employment."  
>Casimiro immediately puffed up, injured or not it was clear that he was just about to mangle as much of the dog as he could reach through the bars, Finas however came up behind him and forcibly shouldered him away, giving him a look stern enough to wilt flowers.<p>

"Have you been told, by Magnus, to feed us?"

The dog nodded, as if on a rusty hinge. As I examined him closer from behind Finas, I realized how skinny he was. Really just a skeleton with a gaudy, scraggly blue rug draped over it. "That an 'ta generally attend to yehr care before tanight's performance."

There it was again, the all important _performance_. I still found it hard to believe that Magnus had paid Abner an apparently large sum…just because he actually expected us to do _tricks_for him? Jesus, could that really be it? It was like the plot of some kind of crappy fanfiction. Why would you go the extra mile and spend on vampires? You could sure as hell teach real bats to fly around in circles and do stand up comedy.

Finas blinked and moved slightly closer, dipping his head as if he were bowing to some kind of ambassador. "Then we are grateful, and I am pleased to meet you. I am Finas, this is my companion, Casimiro."

The bat in question snorted disdainfully, but he allowed Finas to continue. I looked up cautiously, still a healthy distance from the dog. Not only did he work for Magnus, but in comparison to me he was roughly the size of a barge. I was fine _waaay_over here.

"...and the young one is Conrad."

_27 isn't fucking young,_ I barely bit back a retort. Well… _I guess when you compare it to several centuries it might be a little wet behind the ears._

"Gerard," supplied the dog, his tongue dancing thoughtfully across his chops as his eyes skirted over each of us in one, business-like sweep. It was a look that said, _Yeah, I've seen this before._

"An' now that we're all intra'duced I'll ask 'gain. Are you lot hungry?"

At that _exact_ moment a gravelly rumble embarrassed me as it clawed its way from my stomach. I promptly felt like I was going to burst into flames. Why would that even still happen? But apparently, just as I suspected, being a vampire was useless when it came improving my self-image. In fact it seemed to totally sink it as Casimiro threw his head back and fucking_cackled,_even Finas smiled. Almost.

Gerard followed suit, staring at me suddenly with unexpected warmth. It was pretty uncalled for if you ask me, but …it was a definite improvement. His pink tongue panted, churning air in the dark atmosphere as he gave us his back.

"I'll take tha' as a 'yes'...We got things 'ta discuss…but let me go get yer food first." As the dog limped away, Finas's expression quickly changed from impartial to hard and calculatory. The shift was sudden and brutal, flipping like a light-switch and darkening his features. The sight of it made my ears fold back against my head, mildly disturbed. _Shit..what's he trying to figure out?_

"A werewolf," the broad shouldered bat mused. "It is strange, they are very rare and this is the second one we've seen in the past year."

"Huh," Casimiro brooded, beginning to pace despite the fact that his injury was obviously still paining him. _Christ the guy can't even stay still when he's asleep._

"Why the hell would a werewolf be workin' for Fagnus anyway? They usually stick to their packs don't they?"

"Well," I offered, though I obviously hadn't been invited into the conversation.

"Toni doesn't have a pack...well, she never talks about it but she said she's ...never known another werewolf."

Casimiro scoffed. "The chick is lying to you, you idiot, _of course_ she'd have to have known another werewolf, or she wouldn't be one in the first place. My guess is that she _inherited_that fancy pendant, she hardly knows what to do with it."

"_You're_a fucking idiot," I spat, bristling. Casimiro was just jealous because he couldn't beat Toni in poker without cheating. "You were going to tear into the guy responsible for feeding us. That's not very smart, you know."

"He does have a point," added Finas dryly. "I know it's difficult for you, but let's just _wait and see_. There are valuable things we could learn from him."

The statement earned him a poisonous glare from the injured bat that said quite clearly. _'Screw waiting and seeing, I want to PUNCH things.'_

Then again, a thought occurred to me "...Did..." I huffed a little and then finally got up the courage to ask. "Did either of you...dream anything last night?" _Well, Finas wouldn't have because it's obvious that he didn't sleep...but Casimiro..._  
>Finas cleared his throat like an engine revving up, his ear flicking. "He's coming back."<p>

Gerard's melancholy figure was indeed slowly padding back to us, he looked slightly less guarded, even a little amused. There appeared to be a lot of white...cotton balls stuffed in his mouth, however and that made me frown in confusion...until I realized that the cotton balls were squirming.

_Oh crap._ I thought, my stomach lurching unpleasantly, despite how hollowed out it was with hunger. _Those aren't cotton balls._

"Guahahyaha!" I spat in disgust, my wings flapping like a startled sparrow as Gerard pressed his shaggy muzzle against the wooden panels. With a disgusting sound, like _bllehhhhhhhhh,_ he released a fucking _army_of white mice into the straw, squeaking and scattering around us like someone had- I dunno- dropped a box of white tic-tacs.

"…Why the hell would you _do_ that?" My voice was almost _wounded._

Gerard blinked "Y'said you ..well, y'sounded like you were hungry."

I stared back at him blankly, for a moment the two ideas not connecting in my head…then with horror I saw Finas slap a mouse with one of his paws as if he were batting a gnat, hearing a faint snap that must've instantly broken its back.

"Wait…wait…you want us, to _eat_them?" I said with slowly dawning horror. Good god what an utterly NASTY idea that was. I don't even want to go into mentioning the diseases I could contract. if I wasn't dead that is, but…just…biting into a hairy little rodent like a god damn python and sucking on it…a white furry juice packet?

"Sorreh kid, I know you vampires like the finer things, but a dead woman leaves traces and I warrant it wouldn't fit through the bars so nicely."

"He wouldn't eat a woman if you brought him Jennifer fucking Lopez." Casimiro said, and looked up, straight at me. I nearly fainted when I realized there were _tails_squirming in his jaws like horror movie spaghetti.

"Aren't…aren't you supposed to drink from them anyway?" I said in a tiny, revolted squeak, disgust writhing in me like ten hundred baby squids.

Casimiro laughed cruelly, dropping the dead mice in a small heap before sinking his teeth into one of them. Finas just frowned, dipping his head and…_oh god_, bit into the one he'd been holding under his paw, delicately sipping from it. "Do not concern yourself…He's just being a dick," he said in a very even, neutral voice as he licked drops from his whiskers.

"I..I..." I mumbled, dumbfounded as I watched the remaining mice run around the cage.

"I didn't even know vampires could survive off of animals."

Casimiro snorted. "They can't…it's like trying to survive off of whipped cream…it has no nutrition, even those crappy little blood bags are better for you than these are. Humans naturally have more life force."

Gerard seemed to take a step backwards and as I turned to face him I saw something cross his face…an intensely guilty expression. "It oughta tie yeh over at the very least," he said, thankfully lowering his voice considerably.

"It is not the intention of your- employer for us to fully get our strength back, I take it?" Finas inquired coolly as he looked up from draining his third mouse. Before Gerard could reply however (if, judging by his expression, he meant to at all) he turned, his narrowed eyes suddenly to sending freezing cold shivers of dread down my spine. Aw _shit._

"Conrad, you must eat. I understand your squeamishness, I suppose, but this is no time to be fastidious. We have no time for it."

It was all I could do to keep myself from moaning helplessly when I looked back at the quite possibly disease-ridden little creatures that Finas was expecting me to touch- to bite- to _kill_ with my mouth. _Noooooo_…My inner monologue was screaming. … _That is a huge, flaming pile of NO._

"I…I'll pass," I said, trying to contain the urge to vomit everywhere at the mere suggestion. I was barely stopped by the fact that there was nothing inside me to facilitate it.

"Like HELL you will," grunted Casimiro picking himself up slowly and turning his two-toned stare on me, which, and I am sorry to say this, reminded me of Robo-cop. I began to back away when I realized he was limping towards me, but unfortunately I kept forgetting that the width of our cage wasn't limitless and I ended up with my back against the wall.

It didn't matter anyway. Casimiro had me down in one swipe, though to my credit I fought like I was short-circuiting and called him several things I can't repeat. I don't know what the hell Gerard or Finas must've thought, but I felt like basically I had all throughout grade-school, just an angry nerd getting pushed around and being REALLY pissed off about it.

Casimiro silenced me with a well placed slap to the jaw. I stared up at him, shocked before he pushed his nose in my face and said in a venomous rush.

"I didn't get my arm ripped to fucking Kingdom-Come so you could starve to death for being a mewling, god forsaken little _pussy._Now GROW A PAIR and drain a fucking mouse or I will personally shove this one down your sad excuse for a throat and let me tell you, the resulting stomach ache is NOT pleasant."

"Get the hell off me you asshole! I'm not eating anything I don't want to eat!" I gasped back, slapping him several times with my free wing, though Casimiro's face only got angrier, more dangerous with every silly THWAP! I wasn't succeeding in deterring him, only in pissing him off further. He looked like an ornery tom cat that had been sprayed repetitively with one of those water bottles _Fsh Fsh Fsh_.

"_Cas,_" Finas sighed in the background "Perhaps you should-"

"No," Casimiro growled brutally sinking the tips of his claws into me as he stared down without sympathy, which didn't exactly shock me, hell, I didn't even think to look for it.

"LET GO!"

"You wanna act like a baby that can't feed itself? Fine. I'll feed you like a little fucking baby-bat."

Casimiro sunk his teeth into the flesh of a mouse, staining its soft white fur as blood began to run out slowly, like a dripping faucet. This was what those fangs were made for, after all, and they did their job well. I saw immediately what he meant to do and struggled harder, but nothing I could do would pry me from his grasp. He leaned forward but with none of the gentleness he'd displayed when he'd groomed Finas. I could hear the terrible symphony of crunching bones.

I didn't need to breathe. I could've held my mouth shut and refused, but I was starving and the smell of the mouse's blood was overpowering. Once I scented it, I salivated. Something thoughtless and savage woke within me, and I found myself unable to resist. Shame burned inside me like a flesh-easting virus, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered in that moment except my slavering, stupid hunger. My vampirism would not, apparently, force me to hunt, but it _would_force me to feed.

I began to suckle from the mouse that was practically being juiced for me under Casimiro's grasp. I drank greedily and felt my energy return in a cold burst…it wasn't the same as the blood packets however…in fact, it was barely edible in comparison, but I was so hungry that I didn't care how bland it was. I found myself licking into that wound to urge more blood out of it's pathetic little carcass. Eventually however, far too soon, there was nothing left.

Casimiro watched me for the entirety of it, and the obvious disgust he displayed was not playful or mocking as it usually was. Simply brutal. It was a look I had seen almost every day when I had lived had home, and I had not seen it since then. It made me aware suddenly, of how utterly humiliating I was to the two vampires.

Just as they hadn't anticipated being outmatched by the situation, they hadn't anticipated having to endure my company for so long…I was supposed to have been a tool for their endeavors and ended up being a cancerous burden.

I was just a thorn in their side.

Casimiro threw the drained mouse at my feet. I made no sound when he hobbled away, leaving me there in the straw as if I was simply no longer worth his time. He spat his words carelessly over his shoulder, like sour bile.

"I'm never doing that for you again. You'll fucking starve to death before you see me feed you, and you'll fucking deserve it." He didn't need to add the last sentence, his tone filled in the blanks. _You worthless piece of shit._

At that moment, I hated Casimiro. I mean, I already hated him, 'cause he was generally an asshole and a bully but now I _really _hated him, possibly past the Worth level. Worth insulted me and made me incredibly angry, but he lacked this confounding ability to remind me of how much I already hated myself.

I realize that I'm no Lestat or anything, okay? I get that. I get into a lot of shit because of it too, but I'm actually usually pretty resilient when it comes to nursing whatever self image I'd finally started to gain.

It takes a lot to remind me just how much of a loser I am, how everyone who looks at me pretty much has the same consensus: Loser. But, after all this had happened, now it was in my face and I couldn't look away from it no matter how much I wanted to. The fact is, I suck as a person, and I suck as a vampire too, or don't, if you want to go for the low-blow puns.

At some point, Finas started a lengthily conversation with Gerard, that I barely picked up on as I curled, a red paperweight in the straw. The music of their two monotone voices soon meshed smoothly together, but my mental exhaustion caused me to space out, only briefly surfacing to wonder why Casimiro wasn't participating.

Usually Finas let him do the talking, but it seemed like he was just getting steadily quieter. Maybe he was taking out his frustration at me on the remaining mice. Well, who cared? I didn't. Fuck him.

The hour slid by in this manner, and I must've almost dozed off again when I felt Finas's heavy paw poke me gently in the belly. I looked up in dazed confusion.

"Conrad, get up, you should listen to this," he said quietly.

I didn't want to do either, moving or talking, at the moment. Actually, a part of me was hoping that I'd sort of sink into the straw and become one with it, a friend, rather than an enemy to the mouse population.

However, Finas just isn't the kind of person you can say "no" to very easily. Without even considering other options, I found myself doing that odd little bat shuffle on my wings until, like Finas, I was face to face with Gerard. Even up close, he was no longer threatening. He was just kind of sad. Just like some kind of old stuffed toy, mega sized, but tattered and left out in the rain.

"Conrad is it?" he offered with familiarity that caught me off guard. It...was just weird to see such open friendliness in a place like this, especially from someone who worked for Willy Wonka and Marilyn Manson's fruity love child.

"Me an' yer friend here have been discussin' tanight's performance."

I took a deep breath that I needed more for emotional reasons than physical ones, before I finally received the mental capacity needed to form words. My left eye brow crawled up my face while my right one stayed parked.

"I keep hearing people say that, but what do you mean by it? What does it actually entail? You want us to juggle and fly through hoops for a bunch of hell spawn?"

Or was it just for Magnus's sick amusement? Little seizures of discomfort shook through me as I imagined that skull-like plastic-smooth visage center stage. Demons were bad, yeah, I could infer that, but for some reason, the idea that he'd be the only one in the audience, getting some kind of sick pleasure out of watching us, and probably just as ready to dispose of us after he got his kicks unnerved me even more. I knew we weren't the only vampires ever to live in this crate. I thought that maybe I could smell the faint traces of others, though my sense of smell wasn't anywhere near at its peak, and it was more of an intuition than anything.

"What I want ain't got nothin' to do with it," Gerard corrected firmly, as if he wanted to make this especially clear "'S what the Ringmaster wants…If you refuse to perform Magnus ain't got much use for keepin' ya and believe me, ya want to be givin' him an excuse for keepin' ya."

Finas stared down at Gerard placidly through the bars, though his tone was as monotonous as a blank coloring book.

"How much concern has he really for turning his own profit. Why not just keep vampires alive regularly instead of slowly starving them on mice and continually needing to replace them...not particularly cost effective, wouldn't you say?"

"..Yeh are fairly sure that yeh can pull off th' routine?" Gerard said after a second's hesitation, his eye contact breaking so he could apparently focus on something incredibly interesting on the floor.

Finas studied him through the bars, and for an anxious moment the dark flash of cruelty I had seen earlier returned, but he did not speak and simply nodded his affirmation.

Gerard turned to, the tips of his ears, ratted and brought to a sharp point, raised in expectation, as if I were about to offer him a Scooby Snack or something.

"So, Conrad, what can yeh do?"

"…What do you mean by that?"

Gerard frowned, like _'Huh, I wasn't expecting that reaction'._"I mean, what are ya capable of?"

_What am I capable of?_ I found myself suddenly going numb, I could feel it all the way down to my now probably "adorable" little claws, my insides beginning to form a neat little knot inside me. It must've been some kind of mysterious illness, possibly the Unfulfilled and Banal life virus, which I hear has been going around. _What can I do...Oh holy fuck. What CAN I do?_

"Uhhh..." I said, reaching blindly into the backward recesses of my mind. I brought my little paws together, twiddling them a bit as my wings hung down like the sleeves of a sweater three sizes too big. My voice, on the contrary, seemed to have shrunk in the wash. "..it depends on what you _want_I guess."

"'s a Circus, boy," Gerard prompted with impressive patience.

I was utterly silent for the next solid minute, and then with a sigh I stepped up to bat.

"I..I have a degree from Ringling…I…I'm a freelance Graphic Designer." _Graduated in the top ten...I have a 93% win percentage at Free Cell...I'm a virgin…wait, that's not something to be proud of..._

"Ah…ya can paint pretty pictures then?"

Gerard then had the nerve to look at me with a long expression of sympathy which I appreciated even less than the "4th grade science experiment" of Finas fame. _That's it, that's fucking IT, I hate these people, all of them… I'm going to SNAP._

Somehow, and I have no idea _how,_I managed to keep from trying to strangle the enormous dog from through the bars (though even if I had tried my tiny hand, paw things wouldn't have even fit a inch around his throat). I took a deep, unnecessary breathe and then released it through my teeth like steam roiling out of a hot shower.

"_Look,_ when I was learning valuable life skills, I didn't think to myself,  
>'Hey what if I end up trapped in god forsaken hell hole of a supernatural circus one day after a quiet night shopping at fucking SaveMart?' It wasn't on my 'to-do list', so I'm terribly sorry if I'm not <em>prepared enough for you."<em>

Gerard shook his head, though he didn't seem at all effected by my rage. He hadn't even seemed to notice it.

"I ain't askin' ya for brain surgery boy, you're a vampire, just the fact that yeh're alive…well, animated anyway is enough t' draw in the type of crowd the Ringmaster caters 'ta. Ya really just need to fly around in loops a couple times an' look cute fer the ones masquradin' as ladies 'n..." He paused, eyeballing me closely, inspecting me as if I were some kind of malfunction in an engine and he were a mechanic.

Then, it was his turn to sigh. "Yeh can't fly, can ya?"

"...Not really."

"…"

"…Well…no. I can't." My wings felt suddenly so heavy, and at that moment it seemed so incredibly unlikely that they would ever have the ability to lift me off the ground into flight, at this point I was about as likely to lift above the Earth as Atlas, possibly even less likely.

Gerard nodded a couple of times. "'Bout what I expected, I 'spose. 'Snot the first time it's happened…but we'll have to work a little harder to pick up th' slack. One of yeh's struck lame, meanin' only two of yeh can perform, one of which can't fly …'snot good for business."

I looked back into the cage briefly, waiting for Casimiro to let out a flurry of insulted protests but it didn't happen. I squinted and saw him huddled in the same corner he'd been before. Was he already sleeping again?

"Work harder?" I queried, attempting to keep a clear head "What…what does that mean?"

"Trainin' o' course. 'nless you think you can remember 'n entire routine th's gonna be in front of a hundred people wit'out practice."

Finas provided Gerard an expression that suggested _he_probably could, but the pale bat was left glaring at the dog's sweeping tail, which was more bone than fur. The werewolf limped into the unsettling blackness where he promptly disappeared, as if shrouded by an all encompassing fuzzy black cloak.

Two bats, a large pale gray one with fashion conscientious hair, and a small red one that defied biology on several accounts by wearing thick rimmed glasses, were left standing, crouched at the edge of the rune-covered boards. I knew it was useless but for the second time I found my claws digging into wood, marked deep with sigils, sometimes tracing along their seemingly harmless grooved lines. They were just little drawings, something I might've scrawled up on a napkin at Starbucks after reading too much National Geographic.

_You're so small_, I thought as I gazed down accusingly at a particularly heinous little stringy one, which, according to my artistic vision, looked sort of like a plate of spaghetti and meat balls. _How can you cause so much trouble?_

I hadn't had any clear expectations when Magnus had tossed us out of that god forsaken bag and straight into another prison, but a blue German Shepherd definitely hadn't been apart of even my foggiest ideas.

Magnus was evil that I was sure of. He was evil, even in comparison to two hedonistic vampire centuries old, which had sure as hell preyed upon more innocent people than I cared to imagine. Before dying, evil seemed incredibly black and white. But ever since Adelaide made me her human Happy Meal, it has crossed sketchy barriers and now I'm not really sure what it entails anymore. Finas and Casimiro were scary and frustrating, often hateful, but now I found it hard to think of them as _evil._

Hadn't they been just as ready to threaten me as Magnus was? Did I have the right to discern between the two based on gut feeling, or even, god forbid, _familiarity_alone?

Whatever the case, I also knew Gerard wasn't evil, he was about as evil as Hanna or his zombie was. He was mysterious and strange, kind of a presumptuous old fart too, but decidedly not evil.

With the weight of these thoughts bowing my head, I turned back to Finas, who was glancing back into the midst of the straw. It was in no vague way that he looked worried, that bracket brow was sunk deep against his eyes, which were still half lidded and tired. I got the feeling that it had little to do with the possibility of having to do acrobatic maneuvers in the near future, however painfully beneath him it was.

Gerard had been gone for several minutes, and the silence was beginning to deeply unsettle me in conjunction with the inky darkness. I had to say something, just to hear the noise of my own voice and convince myself that I was still there.

"Finas," I said, my first grievance popping into my head as soon as I decided to start speaking. "Are all werewolves blue?"

Finas did not so much as look as gawk at me in a way that suggested I had, in my great wisdom, once again said something extremely offensive, and possibly so awkward that he was absolutely baffled at how to respond. I was immediately horrified and the silence, if it had been bad before, was now toxic.

Finas shook his head. "Conrad. That is _very_rude."

"What," I said, like trauma caused by a blunt object to the head. _"What?"_

"Jesus Christ, Snaggletooth," Casimiro sniped from the back of the cage. _Oh joy he's still with us._

"-That is so fucking racist, how many werewolves have you met? Two? And you just _assume_they're all blue?"

"But…but," I sputtered, sure now that I was losing my fucking mind. "But I-"

"Conrad, I know tensions are high," Finas tutted. "But it would be in our best interests not to exercise such _prejudices_when we are held against our will-"

"Hey- WOAH WOAH _WOAH,_just wait a fucking minute here-"

Our argument was promptly cut off for one perfectly legitimate reason: the world was now burning.

Okay okay, so I can explain. This chapter was _supposed_ to be the WTF chapter, but it ended up exploding, because I can't control myself. The final product was 33 pages and it STILL didn't get to the right point to start the "wtf" stuff...SO...we decided to split up the chapters. XD Therefore this is henceforth known as the "sadpanda" chapter.

Introducing Gerard the werewolf, as a side note, his voice is Sam Elliot in my head. *nodnod* He is quite blue, quite fuzzy and...that's all I'm going to say about him for now.

aaand I'm sorry for all the Conrad abuse, but to be fair Casimiro was the one getting abused in the other chapters and i guess this is his revenge. 

Okay okay, so I can explain. This chapter was _supposed_ to be the WTF chapter, but it ended up exploding, because I can't control myself. The final product was 33 pages and it STILL didn't get to the right point to start the "wtf" stuff...SO...we decided to split up the chapters. XD Therefore this is henceforth known as the "sadpanda" chapter.

Introducing Gerard the werewolf, as a side note, his voice is Sam Elliot in my head. *nodnod* He is quite blue, quite fuzzy and...that's all I'm going to say about him for now.

aaand I'm sorry for all the Conrad abuse, but to be fair Casimiro was the one getting abused in the other chapters and i guess this is his revenge. 

Okay okay, so I can explain. This chapter was _supposed_ to be the WTF chapter, but it ended up exploding, because I can't control myself. The final product was 33 pages and it STILL didn't get to the right point to start the "wtf" stuff...SO...we decided to split up the chapters. XD Therefore this is henceforth known as the "sadpanda" chapter.

Introducing Gerard the werewolf, as a side note, his voice is Sam Elliot in my head. *nodnod* He is quite blue, quite fuzzy and...that's all I'm going to say about him for now.

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><p>Please remember to check SuperCatGirl's account on DA for the lovely cover art she's drawn 3<p> 


	4. Awful Interlude 1: Not Entirely

Because Chapter Four was being a bitch to write and we realized that we had to completely revamp it for the story to work properly, we conceded that we couldn't keep people waiting THAT long for another chapter. and I'm happy we did because it gave me an excuse to write THIS thing which I'm actually pretty fond of. :) It adds a lot to the story, I think.

* * *

><p><strong>Awful Edges<strong>

**Awful Interlude 1- Not Entirely**

The blanket was vermillion with a fuzzy black cross stitch sewn around the fringe. She had unfolded it very slowly, even though 'slowly' wasn't usually her style. This was mainly because while she was doing it, she had been imagining how much unnecessary time the nerdy vampire must've taken to fold it so neatly. The idea gave her painful little pangs in her stomach and made her throat feel like it was swelling and closing up. She fanned out the blanket, flapping it a few times and as it grabbed air it expanded like a parachute.

She wasn't even really sure when he had told her what his favorite color was... She had just tuned in on it. If she hadn't known better, she would've sworn that if there had to be a Red and Blue Oni between them, it should've been the other way around. Conrad wasn't a person, she had found, who allowed himself much leeway, even when it came to simple pleasures like candy and colors.

Toni associated strong, fiery type people with red. In other words: people that weren't Conrad. Veser, for instance, would've been a good candidate for that classification, but instead he had decided to make his aura a big green eyesore the size of Scotland itself. It was funny how things worked out that way…

She blinked down at the comatose teenager in a distant kind of 4 AM disapproval. He was always subconsciously doing something to troll the people around him. This time it involved falling asleep backwards with his legs and shoe-covered feet still firmly on Conrad's sofa and his head hanging off the side, prominent ridges of silver hair touching the floor. He was drooling everywhere too.

"Gross," she muttered, pursing her dark lips which hadn't been applied with their necessary layer of blue because she hadn't been doing her makeup. They spent all their time here now and the bathroom was always crowded. Well, at least the only people who were around to judge her happened to be an obnoxious teen, a midget, and a zombie. No one from any talent agencies would be hanging around this place, unless they were representing a freak show.

The werewolf would've been mad about the shoes on the couch but…As much as she tried, she just couldn't bring herself to care that much about the state of the vampire's condo. The place she lived in was such an utter rat-hole that it would always seem nice in comparison. Unlike Conrad, she was a real starving artist, or at least one that survived primarily on Eggo Waffles and Chinese takeout.

She ultimately threw the blanket on Veser as if she were trying to cover an unattractive piece of furniture and left it at that, stepping lightly over a three day old McDonald's Happy Meal box and several discarded cans of Cheese Wiz so she could make her way into what had once been Conrad's sparkling kitchen. It was now the" base of operations" in the "Find Conrad" effort- and anything but clean.

For instance, there were three stacks of slightly water-stained copy paper, each at the height where they could've been stand ins for Hanna himself. On each one, there was a picture they had cyber-stalked of Conrad before he had become a vampire (not much different, except he had a dorkier haircut, round glasses and seemed significantly less pale). In big black letters it read,** "MISSING "PERSON". Call Hanna at..." **There was alsoa lot of dirty dishware lying in cluttered piles with maple syrup and/or ketchup drying on them (she could smell the stuff all the way from here, and needed no werewolf powers to do it) and there were sharpies. A lot of sharpies. Everywhere and in any color ranging from plain black to blazing pink, most of which no longer had any ink to their name.

Toni was used to living in a disorganized jumble with three or four other people sharing the same cramped living space. It usually didn't bother her because it meant people were busy and had a lot to do and were therefore pretty happy. But this was a different kind of mess. It was a cagey, really kind of obsessive I-don't-really-care-because-I'm-obsessivly-thinking-about-something-else type mess.

She frowned, pushing one of the stacks aside carefully so she could place her hand on one of the slumped, weirdly broad shoulders, hunched in stress so thick it could've been cut with a knife. Hanna's arms were folded under his chin. He looked more like a puppy than she did. He was staring out of the window, down at the traffic below vacantly. He wasn't moving much, but Toni could tell straight away that he wasn't asleep. His heart rate wasn't right for that.

"..Hey Hanna," she offered gently, her almond shaped eyes falling on the same sad sight for what felt like the hundredth time. It was definitely one time too much every time it happened. "You shouldn't worry about it so much. Conrad's ...pretty resilient. We'll find him..or he'll come back on his own."

When Hanna didn't respond, she sighed and gave him a shove, having little patience for this anymore. "Hanna, moping about it and refusing to sleep isn't going to help Conrad or the effort to find him."

"I'm not moping...I'm thinking," he grunted in a very Un-Hanna tone of voice. "And I can't think while I'm asleep...I've tried those tapes you know, to like, learn ancient Latin but I don't think my subconscious is very attentive." He trailed off in what she thought was a _very _mopey tone of voice.

She gave up any hope of continuing that vein of conversation. He was on autopilot and those eccentric curls of red hair were like antennas, picking up a signal she couldn't reach.

She could however feel how agonized he was, how worried and guilty. It was coming off in waves to the point where he literally reeked of it, and it was almost making her feel sick to be around him...but what else could she do? She couldn't just let him die in the next Sharpie avalanche or forget to eat or sleep until he became just as much a zombie as his companion.

He obviously thought Conrad's disappearance was his fault and well, it kind of _was_, in a way...okay, in a _lot _of ways, but no one blamed him for it, damn it!

_ I certainly don't blame you, Hanna. _ She curled her tanned fingers into the twists of her own two toned hair and sighed, her gaze dropping right along with her thought process.

_ I hope ...what's his name today again? Uh...Elmer gets back in a hurry. He seems to be the only one who can get through to him right now._

But Elmer was out on the town getting Big Macs and coffee for everyone so it had to be her. Toni forced her hands down, wrestled them into submission and tried again.

"Hey Hanna, remember that ordeal with the cthlu Elder God? That was pretty bad right? When he had Conrad all up in his tentacles...didn't you think he was a goner and…wasn't it kind of all your fault because you accidentally summoned it from the dimension where it was an evil entity instead of a guardian of time and space?"

Hanna frowned and adjusted his large square glasses " I have to admit... I'm... not sure where you're going with this."

Toni took a deep breath. "Well, did Conrad actually get chomped? No. He never does! He always gets through it somehow. Sure, he bitches about it later...but he's never any worse for wear."

Hanna sighed, "This was a _vampire hunter,_ Toni...he knows how to kill 'em. And he kills ones a lot tougher than ours. How could Conman make it?" The question hung in the air for a moment, worry acidly gnawing at the lining of Toni's stomach before Hanna continued despondently, slumping forward … "What the fuck was I _thinking_, letting that guy in without asking who he was? I'm so stupid!"

_ There he goes again._

"Now he's probably lying dead …deader in a ditch somewhere with his fang ripped out and even as we speak, it's being sold on the supernatural Black Market..."

Toni could've slapped herself for it, but she was finishing his sentence for him, in her mind, before she could stop herself.

_ ...what are we going to do if he really IS dead? I mean, for-real dead?_

"Don't be ridiculous," she said, with much more confidence than she felt. "Hanna, you're just…trusting that's all. He said he was Conrad's friend right? Well we don't know that much about him before he turned so…it couldn't have been hard to believe."

"Toni..he had a gun with him. And a ferret. And he was wearing goggles and a ventilator mask." He scratched his scalp through that spaghetti plate of red locks. "I really don't think he'd fit in with Conrad's crowd".

"Okay" she admitted "That _was_ pretty stupid."

"Yeah..." he agreed sadly. "I know."

_Damn it! That's not what I meant, Hanna! _Toni almost face-palmed. She really wasn't good at this "comforting people" stuff. It wasn't like she minded or anything, but she was just a biiit high strung and that tended to make for a poor shoulder to cry on. But she was doing her best.

Her lower lip quivered but she refused to submit to the urge to curl up in a ball near the door and cry like a little girl. No! Okay, maybe later, but not until she was alone and there weren't a bunch of impressionable man-children around. For now, she had to just suck it up. With the zombie out of the building, the level of competence in the group was dizzyingly low and _someone _had to pick up the slack.

She looked down briefly at the crumpled pile of papers, and then glanced back at Hanna's hands which were covered in ink and tangled in failed runes. Conrad's sigil was a series of straight diagonal lines with a kind of curly one slashed through it…it hardly resembled anything, but she couldn't look at it without feeling an ache to hear his torrent of passive aggressive rambling. Sigils were supposed to represent the magical entities they symbolized, and Hanna should have been able to summon the nerdy vampire, just by drawing it and saying the correct incantation, but so far his efforts to do so had been a complete failure.

She had to admit: the signs weren't exactly pointing to Conrad being in Tahiti, enjoying the temperate climate but she refused to believe he was anything but more-or-less alive. He had Donald Duck luck, wherever he was, he was probably miserable, but alive. _Yes. _He would definitely be okay!

"Okay, So this Van Slyke guy..." she muttered, not at all confident that Hanna was even listening to her. "He's part of an organization of vampire slayers?"

To her surprise, Hanna's answer was prompt, just a sudden flow of what he'd obviously been worrying over before she'd prodded him. "Yeah. Vampire Slaying Services LTD... The fuck-heads are employed on a global level by this big mega-industry... they have different outlets everywhere. This city is pretty rampant so they need a big doberman like Van Slyke to police it."

She sat up startled when she heard Hanna's fist collide with the table.

"I really _hate_ these guys... I mean I know vampires kill people, but they used to _be_ people too... So killing them indiscriminately… like friggin' mice is just as bad! It's murder...no, it's friggin' genocide!" He brooded, pale blue eyes narrowing. "How could they not realize that?"

Toni raised an eyebrow. _Way to be a bleeding heart Hanna. I don't know any vampire besides Conrad that wouldn't jump at the chance to wolf you down if you didn't smell like rotten milk to them._

"Do they make money off of it?"

"Well," his awkwardly huge shoulders suddenly went limp, making him look even smaller than he was, and that was pretty small. "…Yeah."

She found herself sucking air through her windpipe, for what felt like the fourteenth time that night. "Hanna, their just like any other business...plus it's probably more beneficial towards humanity than you may think. Besides, we're just trying to find _Conrad_ and... regardless of what other vampires might do..._he_ definitely hasn't hurt anyone."

_He really hasn't, _she thought grimly. _And if I find out someone has hurt HIM…I'll tear them apart limb from limb…_

Hanna shook his head. "What I'm weirded out about is this: Why would Van Slyke keep him alive? He's apparently one of their most efficient agents...he hardly ever misses a kill."

Toni's heart twisted. Was it only Hanna's vain hope that they were clinging to? "So..." she managed quietly "You think he's probably..."

"No no" Hanna replied, but his shock blue eyes darted back and forth like monochromatic traffic lights in a busy intersection."At least I don't_ think_ so...I mean no guarantees or anything, but there's a good possibility he's not dead...really dead. I mean, usually he _couldn't _be, if he was than his sigil would look different after I drew it," he glanced down. "Then again, when a magical creature is alive and on this plane, it also usually lights up...I've never seen anything like this _happen_ before...and Slyke really doesn't seem the type to dabble in the black arts so..."

"How do you know anything about this guy"? she said, her voice suddenly stern. "Did you..._Google_ him or something?"

The red head smiled sheepishly, but it was a weak attempt. "Yeah heh, I used Conrad's Mac..it's faster than mine..Heh, speaking of dinosaurs... his password is 'velociraptor', pretty nerdy right?"

She frowned, "Hanna how do you know that-"

But he interrupted her, suddenly switching gears again at the drop of a hat, it seemed. "Hey Toni you're good with people right?"

"Well I um..."

"You're like a dog! You can immediately tell whether a person is good or bad right? Sniff 'em out?"

Toni simply glared at him, but Hanna didn't pick up on it. He was on a roll.

"...Cool. Cool. Yeah. So…what was your impression of the two vampires you guys were scuffling with back there?"

Toni frowned "They cheat at poker."

Hanna cleared his throat. "I mean uh- besides that?"

Okay, now she actually had to dwell on it, though it was a bit difficult with Hanna staring at her so expectantly. Eventually however, she was able to articulate the vague feelings and sensations that always whirled within her when considering people. She usually decided within the course of five minutes whether or not she liked someone, but there was a level of complexity to her decisions that even long term relationships didn't have.

"Their obviously very old and experienced...unlike Conrad, they kill," she frowned "I could smell fresh blood on them...I could even see it in the way they moved…the way they _looked _ at people, but I guess they don't kill very often because the scent was at least two weeks old...personality wise, the thin dark one...there's something wrong with him, obviously, which you'd know more about than me I'm sure... but beyond that he's just kind of a jerk. A blowhard, I mean... full of hot air. His partner was very thoughtful and didn't say much, but he was watching everything...taking it all in. And he stopped us from really getting into it because I guess he figured it wasn't worth the damage. He…made a calculation and there was no profit.

...I don't think they were _evil,_ perse, but pretty dangerous, yeah. Unpredictable." _It_ o_nly stands to reason that one of them would end up threatening to kill us all_...That was what happened when you hung out with Hanna. Not that she was worried or anything, if it came down to it, she wasn't afraid to fight and there was safety in numbers.

Hanna nodded. "I guess what I'm kinda confused about is that they showed up there with Conrad. They _wanted_ something from him. They'd have to be with him now, wherever he is I'd guess...if I could find out their sigils I could experiment, but it'd just be a waste of time if they turned out the same...I wonder what they could gain from hangin' out with Conman...?"

"Didn't they say that he had a connection with Adelaide?" Toni asked, tapping her fingers on the table impatiently. "They mentioned that we could use Conrad to find Adelaide and draw her out…but it looks like they beat us to the punch."

Hanna snapped his fingers and there was something maniacal in his expression that sent off warning signals. _INVESTIGATE._ "Hey there's that! We just need to find Adelaide and _ASK _her about them, and then once we know that connection- maybe we can-"

"Um Hanna," Toni interrupted him hastily, not liking at all where this was going. "I think that's a_ bad _idea..the mysteries just keep piling up and you're in enough trouble as it is-"

"''EY!" Both of them turned suddenly when they heard an unapologetic banging noise at the door. It was a sound like a large goose repetitively hitting a windshield, and it made her ears ache, her skin crawl, and her fingers itch to hurt someone.

Toni straightened up to shoulder past Hanna who simply blinked in a state of drowsiness. She lept nimbly to answer it, intent on stopping the racket before it could have a chance to wake up Veser—they had just managed to get him passed out and silent, and there was no way she was risking waking up the Teenage Selkie at this hour, whose only state of lethargy was when he was playing his DS or sleeping.

When Toni opened the door, she wasn't sure what she was expecting. But a nasty-looking, stooped, pissed-off blonde man in a filthy fur coat, a receding hairline and a cigarette shoved in his snarling mouth certainly wasn't on the list. Toni almost closed the door, before he stuck his foot in it, causing her to hiss and step back, dark glare turning icy and mistrustful. She wasn't a dog okay? But she had no trouble smelling a rat...that, and her vision wasn't bad either.

"What's _your_ problem? If you're selling something- we're not interested so go away."

_ This guy dosen't look like he peddles vacuum cleaners though. Unless Hanna has worse habits than I thought he did._

The skinny dude scowled at her with an utter lack of remorse. "Lemme in."

"Uh, let me think – _no."_

"Wha' the hell 'ya stuck up yer vag Sweetheart? 'm here t' see a limey faggot and a redheaded midget not some blue haired bitch. Lemme in!"

"What'd you_ call me?"_ She snarled opening the door wider, already beginning to bristle. She was totally ready to go off on this drug-selling bastard, daring to threaten her friends, and she thought she saw the fur on the nape of his neck and shoulders do an odd flaring thing before he began cawing at her like a molting crow.

"You fuckin' HEARD ME-"

"You," she said, balling her fist as her amulet began to glow. "Are making a _huge_ mistake, buddy-"

"HEY WORTH," Hanna broke in, slithering between them with a huge grin plastered uncomfortably, sewn into the lines of his face. Toni had been trying to make him smile for the past week without success, but she would've preferred crying to that uncomfortable monstrosity.

"THIS IS TONI!" He said with a gesture at her- pretty much all of her as if he were selling a used car. He bared his teeth in nervous energy. "My _werewolf_ friend."

"A...Ah." The older man furrowed his brow- and he had a lot of brow to furrow, incidentally. Then he smiled too, and Toni almost felt like she was about to vomit a little in her mouth. "Tha's..." he coughed.

"...and this," Hanna said in a small voice, giving her a meaningful look. "Is Doctor Worth, my physician, who I would be so dead and splattered on an alley way floor without. Hey! Great that you guys have finally met!"

"Fuck ya very much too, Hanna" the 'doctor' growled.

"Huh. Nice to meet you, I guess?" she said anticlimactically, once again needing to force her hands into submission as she tried to keep from them from reaching out and strangling that that very turkey-like neck.

"_Eh.." _He grunted non-committally, pulling his lighter out of his pocket and fiddling with it.

There was an incredible, _record-breaking_ awkward silence before he shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to Hanna, glare fully restored to laser-beam power. "Where the FUCK've ya been doin' for the past week? Ah pass'd out on Monday, wake up on bloomin' Sunday- goes 't show 'ow much ya value my damn company. Why hasn't Fagula been by witcha to pick up 'is care packages?" He stuck a finger in Hanna's face. "An' why 'aven't ya been mortally wounded by now?"

Hanna stared at him, it was clear that out of the amount of questions Worth had just asked him..about, well, none of them had been filtered through. "Worth, why exactly are you here?"

"Ya didn't think 't call me?" He griped, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a packet of medical blood, waving it so the contents sloshed around in maybe what he thought was a seductive way for any vampires that might've been watching. "I brought yer damn pet his fuckin' nommies if you'll let me in."

"How did you know to come here?"

"Ah sensed a disturbance in the fuckin' force!" he said in exasperation. "'Twas like a faggot cried out in terror an was silenced.' Now. Let. Me. Fucking. In."

"Uhh...I'm glad you were ...concerned? Enough? I guess? To...come out of your clinic and...walk all the way here ..I…I assume?" said Hanna, giving Toni the impression that this bird really didn't leave the roost much, and his rising-from-the grave indicated that this was some cause for concern.

She hadn't known Hanna or the rest for very long, after all, and she'd heard the name Worth, or Doc Worth, but she'd never connect the term _Doctor_ with this guy. Come to think of it, hadn't she heard Conrad rant about him before?

_I should pay more attention to him sometimes__, _she reflected sadly._ Next time, even if he bitches for more then an hour, I'll inhale every word._

Worth stuck his head in the door and stooped down so he was nose to nose with the still grinning redhead.

"Ya didn't answer my question. Why 'asn't Princess Sparklepyre been by?"

"Princess...ahhaha" Hanna answered with an explosion of nervous laughter, weaving his two sets of fingers together, his grin suddenly, slowly slipping off his face.

Worth was Not Amused. He bit down on his cigarette and sighed, rolling the whites of his bloodshot eyes in a way that suggested he had been here before. "Don't start in with 't laughin' ya leprechaun..I get 'nuff of that from Mont…What the fuck did ya _do_?"

Hanna's lips trembled under Worth's accusatory gaze, his blue eyes shining and then, Toni could've counted it off- he broke. She supposed this had been the last straw. Worth obviously hadn't been shooting for this and the expression on his face when he got his prize would've been priceless …in any other circumstance.

"We fucking LOST him, okay? There-was-this-guy-who-showed-up-at-Conmans-door-while-he-was-getting-me-Oreos-and-stuff-and-he-had-a-gun-OKAY THAT WAS STUPID-but-he-also-had-a-ferret and I'm SORRY IF I'M INCLINED TO TRUST PEOPLE WITH CUTE FLUFY ANIMALS-"

The blonde man looked flustered, and put his hands up as if that would stop the torrent of emotion from flooding. Honestly Toni sympathized; this was a big cloud of Do Not Want.

"Wot the fuck...are ya even..."

Hanna's wringing of his hands quickly turned into flailing as he practically began _shrieking_. "-And and then he SHOT AT CONRAD-and-I-tried-to-stop-him but-my-spell-backfired and I got SHOT THROUGH A WINDOW AND THEN HE TOOK CONRAD AND THOSE OTHER TWO GUYS AND I HAVE NO IDEA IF HE'S DEAD AGAIN OR WHAT-"

"HolyfuckingJesuskid…Shuddup!"

Toni was so unbelievably happy for this to be over when Worth lunged forward and whacked Hanna across the face, silencing him and causing him to fly backwards immediately, with as much weight as a teddy bear thrown amidst a tantrum.

Of course she felt bad about it instantly and turned on the self proclaimed 'Doctor', dark eyes blazing, ready to show this motherfucker out of the nearest window (no matter how tiny it was: his ass would FIT).

"How _dare_ you!" She spat.

"Toni," Hanna piped up suddenly, wiping his mouth, before letting out a small relieved giggle, not really a laugh, just an exhaustion of pent up air. "Stop."

Toni snarled, her heel digging into the tile floor, as she turned back reluctantly, as if being pulled back by an invisible lead, which was really just her new-found affection for him.

"I'm serious. Stop."

_Sorry Hanna, but this guy __just clocked you, and I'm not letting him get away with it._.. But hold on, the look on Hanna's now purpling face as he stared up at the blonde man was actually..._better._

_Way_better. In fact, it was better than it had been every single damn time she had tried to cheer him up. For the first time in many days and long nights, he looked mildly at peace.

Toni's shoulders slumped, and even though she had never smoked in her life, she felt like she could've used a cigarette._If I'd have known punching him would've worked, I would've done that in the first place. Would've been stress relief for us both_, she thought tiredly, thinking of sleep.

She turned to look at the blonde, who was still glaring down at Hanna. After a second or two more of contemplation, he made a noise that sounded like 'meh' reminding her of an angry billy goat as he continued to chew on his cancer-stick, and drew his arms over his bird-cage chest.

"Peachy. Now tha' you can put some words together, Can you explain 't me how the hell you manage lose a _vampire_? For fuck's sake Hanna, he's not a damn puppy, what'd ya do, leave the front door open?"

"You don't understand"! Hanna argued in a small voice, hugging his knees. "It was a vampire hunter. Abner Van Slyke... he...like I said, er, screamed, he was here at Conrad's condo waiting for him...and I..." he gulped down what felt to Toni like a lot of tears. "I let him in...and he...he took Conrad and two other vampires with him...and I don't really know if he's..." he stopped, closing his eyes for a moment.

Toni bent down immediately, wrapping her arms gingerly around him. He trembled for a moment, and for a second she had to work hard to remind herself that she was cradling a 24 year old man and not a child.

Hanna consisted of nothing, it was like under his skin and wiry skeletal frame there was just a cloud of nervous energy piloting his body, forcing it to sleepwalk instead of organs and muscles. Werewolves didn't have a lot of heightened supernatural senses, but they could tell a lot about a person, just by touching or sensing them. For that moment Toni realized why the zombie might've clung to him...he had a pull, a fragile pull, like an origami creation, but it was there nonetheless. He was all spirit and folded paper. He made a person nostalgic, he made them remember that they had emotions, not that Toni needed as much reminding as the zombie...or even...

Worth made a disgusted sound, a puff of air and smoke billowing out from between jagged teeth. He neared the door but didn't pass the threshold, lingering uncomfortably in the kitchen like a finicky coyote, skittering around the edges of a carcass. He certainly didn't look like he belonged in Conrad's apartment, even in a state of disaster it was still decidedly domestic, even homey. _How the heck did h__e even know where it was anyway? _Toni pursed her lips at the implications behind that question.

"Right. You just..." he made a strange, flippant hand gesture. _He's probably on something__,_ Toni thought, biting her lip as she watched him closely. _Or several things._

"Jus'...be a good little hobbit an' hang tight," he growled. "Ferchristsakes Hanna, I don't know how the fuck you get me to do these things." Toni lifted her head, realizing too late that he was already halfway out the door, and then had proceeded to slink away down the hall. She could hear his faint footsteps on the stairs and then sighed in relief.

That was one less nutcase she had to worry about. At least while he was here he had seemingly both tired Hanna out and... Apparently punched him into clarity of mind.

Now for _this_ nutcase- it was time for bed.

"Hey Hanna" she muttered. "You still want McDonald's?"

"...No," he replied in a low voice. "Not really hungry."

"You have to eat..." she said with a sigh. _Poor Elmer, walked all the way there and back and now by the time he comes home no one will be eating._

"...Tired," Hanna mumbled, there had been other words, but somewhere along the way they had gotten misplaced.

She blinked in pleasant surprise. "Does that mean you'll agree to actually_sleep_?"

Hanna sounded a bit calmer than before, thankfully, "Yeah, for a couple hours heh, don't let me be a Rip Van Winkle, repeat okay? I doubt Conman would appreciate us leaving him- wherever he is for 100 years." He took a deep breathe. "..and if...Worth for some reason shows up later, don't freak out okay? Wake me up." A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "I know you don't like him, but he kinda heh heh staples me back together occasionally. I need him".

She shook her head. "The company you keep...it suits you I guess." She smiled. "Okay. Lets go, kiddo." She really doubted that man would be back anyway.

"I'm 24," he said with a yawn.

She helped him to his feet. By the time she reached Conrad's room, she had to forcibly restrain herself from trying to tuck him in. That was one thing she was strict about—Hanna was the only one allowed to sleep in there and he always had to make the bed when he got up. If Conrad was dead again at least he wouldn't be rolling in his grave_...too much._

_Okay he wouldn't be happy to have Hanna sleeping there..but if Hanna needed to ...he would let him. That's why Conrad's pretty awesome_.

She sighed, looking down at the mess of red hair again and admonishing herself for wanting to ruffle it.

_ 24. He's 24. _Her mind hummed in reprimand. He babbled to her a bit about runes and sigils and Bugs Bunny cartoons as she sat on the side of Conrad's bed, chatting back at him until he nodded off, and then she quietly crept off of it her weight barely making any suggestion of movement on the bed.

She turned away from the sprawled form of the amateur magician or warlock or whatever the hell he was- staring back at Conrad's Apple for a second. She felt guilty for wanting to open it, not really out of any desire to watch Youtube videos or do research, but just to feel kind of close to him. It was silly, she supposed, but it couldn't do any harm and if it made her feel better, why not?

She unplugged it carefully from it's comfortable place on the desk, picking it up very carefully and placing under her arm. She returned to the kitchen and poured herself some iced tea, stirring in as much honey as she could before sitting down and shakily opening the computer, kind of afraid it'd just break in half if she wasn't careful. She wasn't really a techie kinda person. In the past when she had used one, it'd always been her friend Sheila's beat up Dell. This thing was obviously at least twice that expensive.

As the login screen flickered to life, she began to hunt-and-peck the word 'velociraptor' and waited as the Mac hummed and started up, showing a valiantly colorful desk top, which was a web of red and black gear-ish graphics. She found herself staring at that alone. It was intricate and mathematical...Conrad had certainly designed it himself and she felt a surge of pride for him. He'd probably stayed up until 3 AM making sure it was perfect and had still woken up unhappy with it the next morning...but eventually he had gotten it right. If he hadn't liked it, he wouldn't have put it as his desktop. _I'm sure assuming a lot,_ she thought, with a wince. _I need to keep that in check._

She browsed around for a bit, a bit anxious at what she would find. She was curious but was trying not to be overly invasive. If Conrad was the type of guy who had any kind of porn, she really didn't want to see it. _He probably hides it like a ninja if he has any at all__, _she reassured herself, and then cracked a smile when she thought of the day she and Veser had united to torture him with cheesy pick-up lines and racist jokes. _He's such a prude. He's more likely to have like, Batman scans and kittens. Heh, totally, kittens._

Finally after puttering around for a few minutes, she found the folder. It was kind of obviously labeled 'Work' but for some reason she had equated that with excel sheets and calculations instead of well, drawings. Shouldn't there be a 'Drawings' folder?

She'd been wrong, he took his work seriously. The designs, whether it was for hair care products, or backgrounds and logos for web pages, she could feel the passion he'd put into heating up from the keys. It was an odd sensation- being a werewolf meant to experience everything with greater clarity and strength, but it also meant you could be easily overwhelmed. The link formed by the colors and patterns burned in her mind for a solid minute and she continuously clicked, flipping past different images, like memories.

_ "Finas, are all werewolves blue?"_

Toni shook her head as if to shake water from her hair and closed the laptop, feeling a lurch of nausea. For a long time, she leaned back against her chair, afraid she might throw up if she moved and staring up at the modern paneled ceiling of the condo. It was only after a solid three minutes of recovery that she shakily got to her feet. But once she did she had to really reign herself in to keep from running into the living room like an escaped mental patient and flapping her arms, and screaming_. _With happiness.

She'd heard Conrad's voice! He _was_ alive!

There was Veser, out like a light on the sofa with his terrifying mouth hanging open, half covered by the blanket she had thrown to serve the double purpose of mopping up excess drool and improving the general atmosphere of the room. Waking him up after ten hours straight of both being subject to his constant staring at her ass and having to weirdly surrogate-mother him, made Toni feel oddly helpless and it stopped her right in her tracks, but she swung back and forth on her heels in frustration.

_I have to tell them! I have to let Hanna__ and the others know he's alright_, said the crazy voice.

_...But this is the first time he's s slept in days_, a more reasonable one offered uncomfortably.

._..Screw sleep! Conrad's alive! They'll be so happy!_

_ They'll be just as happy if I tell him when he wakes up after a good four hours or so,_ Toni thought trying to reason with herself, but at the idea of waiting that long made her deflate and she found herself spinning slowly in place for a few seconds before leaning against the wall and crossing her arms in a rage- okay- a tantrum.

_ Dammiiiii-iiiiit! I wanna tell someone!_

_ I have to tell someone!_

She felt like her heart was beating out of her chest, singing to her like a stereo on full blast and it wouldn't slow down no matter how many times she drew deep breaths through her lungs. She was happy but at the same time it doubled-no tripled- those feelings of utter helplessness. The more she thought about it the less sense it made.

"_Hey guys,_" she rehearsed in her head. "_I kind of shared an empathetic link with Conrad and heard his voice but I have no idea where he is or how to save him."_

_ Useful?"_

It wasn't like they wouldn't believe her, I mean, selkie, werewolf, magician- a little telepathy was nothing in comparison...but...it just wasn't really worth waking them up yet, no matter how incredibly excited she was about it.

Toni all but resisted from stamping her foot into the now sticky tile floor._ It's not fair_, she whined inwardly. _It's just-ugh!_

"Is everything all right?" The voice was so flat it barely deserved the question mark loosely stapled to it. It wasn't a deliberate flat though, it was a mellow ambivalence, like cool concrete on a windy night in the park. Toni felt the muscles that were threatening to burst from her chest immediately relax- and the ability to make Toni relax was still not something she was so used to encountering. But Francisco had that effect on everyone.

_ Francisco is his name now, Hanna hasn't given him a new one since last week and 'Elmer' is grating on me._

His paper-lantern eyes cast an orange glow like two mini-flashlights on her probably kind of whacked-out-looking face. The small array of expressions he could express varied from mildly pleased, to calm, to mildly concerned- maybe, if the situation was dire enough. Right now she would've tagged it in the 'mildly concerned' category and it had stayed that way for the past few days, the more Hanna had sunken into uncharacteristic bogs of depression.

_Or I don't know, he could be worried about Conrad too._It was really hard to tell how he felt, and her empathy didn't seem to work on the level three dead. But she could glean that whoever the zombie had been before he kicked it- now he was good. He was the best kind of good and he had brought McDonald's and coffee.

"Francisco!" she blurted suddenly, causing him to raise his eyebrows at her, which was impressive because he has maybe three or four way to emote- tops. In the course of three seconds Toni found herself across the room immediately hooking her arms around him and jumping into his arms, which were already full of paper bags that smelled like cheese and regret. She wouldn't have normally made it a habit to jump on people but she knew that one: the zombie didn't sleep and two: she didn't have to worry about any negative repercussions with him.

He frowned down at her genially, furrowing his brow and she continued in a spastic blather.

"I...I was...okay I was on Conrad's computer, and I know what you're gonna say and all, but Hanna found the password not me, and anyway, I wasn't doing anything bad I was looking, well, really staring at his artwork and-" she took a deep breathe. "I..I heard his voice!"

The dead man casually set down the bags which smelled like they were full of cheeseburgers and Mcnuggets, but he didn't try to push her away from him.

"Really?" he asked, jack-o-lantern gaze leveling before he glanced around as if he expected to see Conrad glowering from the hall. "Has he come back all of a sudden?"

"No, no," she said hastily, suddenly feeling awkward and beginning to loosen her grip as she looked up at him. "It's...It was like in my mind." _Great Toni_, she admonished herself. _Way to sound like a spacecase._

"Oh," the zombie replied cordially. "You had a dream about him then."

Toni sighed "No, not exactly. I mean...haven't you heard of empathy?"

"Identification with and understanding of another person's situation, feelings, and motives" he quoted, straight from Webster's.

She was beginning to suspect that the only reason he blinked at all was to avoid making other people feel uncomfortable. She knew he'd read a lot of books about magic and investigation techniques since he'd started following Hanna around, but maybe he hadn't gotten to the more…intuitive branches of magic yet.

"Well, yeah," she said, taking a step back and running her hands through her hair, the words coming fast in a confused spill.

"That's right, but I mean, in a more...mystical sense...it's a bit less...textbook. Anyway..! I had a kind of…connection to Conrad because ..I dunno maybe he was thinking about me at the same time I was thinking about him, and I was concentrating really hard...and," she looked down, suddenly feeling an odd heaviness strike her all at once. Her shoes seemed like they were getting closer and closer as her knees began to give out with the sudden rush of blood to her head. Yet for whatever reason, her mouth kept moving.

"I know it doesn't mean anything because it's not like I can use it to actually _help_ him or anything, and it's not like it's any reassurance that he's safe, but it's the only lead we have so far and it's proof that he's alive but I still can't _help him_ so...

It's just..."

She took a deep breathe, but her lungs just wouldn't fill up with enough air " _useless__."_

Somewhere along the way her head had drooped until her chin almost rested on her collarbone. Her heart made a rapid-fire ugly thudding sound like a croquet mallet beating down a wooden door in some low budget horror flick. She could feel her breathing changing into dangerous paces, whistling out raggedly. Toni knew what would happen by the time she felt her eyes begin to redden with irritation and then the rest just followed before she could stop it.

Toni was adamant about appearing strong, but she also wasn't as good as say, Conrad or Hanna at hiding her emotions...and it felt like the tears had been backed up over the past several weeks when she'd had to force herself to smile and lie through her teeth, were all draining out noow. She knew she 'd have to eventually do this but- Why now of all times, when she actually had some sort of proof that her friend was still alive and kicking- sort of? It was just that she so freaking unsure- and guilty- and she wanted Conrad back here where he belonged, fussing over the increasingly alarming rate at which his condo was getting trashed- and she had to make sure he was because if not it would_ kill_ Hanna and why couldn't' anything ever be _simple?_

_For the first time since the 80's…I finally manage make some real friends. Close friends…and then one of them just disappears off the face of the earth. What kind of person am I, that I would allow that to happen?_

She wanted to reach back around and kick herself in the ass, but the sobs kept coming. She placed her hand over her trembling face to cover it because she could feel the zombie staring at her even now- and how the hell was she supposed to know how he felt about it? Her skin burned with embarrassment, despite how much she tried to tell herself- _he doesn't care- he's mellow- he's a zombie_, she couldn't help but imagine that he was judging her weakness.

She was surprised to find herself being instantly eclipsed by lean forearms, hard only because there was very little flesh separating it from bone and what was there was toughened like worn out leather. Ordinarily she wouldn't have been lining up to hug the undead- but it turned out to be oddly comforting the way he smelled like nothing- if anything like it was a pleasant earthy smell, a cross between unground coffee and sand.

At the encouragement she buried her nose in his orange shirt and let her crying fall into a steady rhythm. She couldn't help but glance up once to check his expression, but it was the same as ever, maybe a little concerned- but placid. He had obviously spent enough time with them to learn a few things about how to deal with people- an important one being: when in doubt: hugs are great. Actually, she thought, burrowing, _Hugs are pretty frickin' awesome._

Toni didn't even try to bother denying it, if the zombie had been alive and not well- all moldy green and glowly-eyed he would've been pretty hot, so she'd figured that he deserved a harlequin romance novel name. Fran_cisco__._ But the general consensus she had reached was- _He's like level three dead now- it'd be like dating a bone I buried._ Plus he didn't seem overly concerned with romance at the moment when presumably, he couldn't even remember his own name. Keeping up with Hanna, the way he was normally, also must've been a full time job.

_Well hyperactive psychotic Hanna is better than the mopey Hanna we have currently_, she thought, beginning to sober up.

After it was over, Toni pulled away and wiped her tear-stained face on her sleeve, glancing at the bags of McDonald's and then back at the zombie, waiting for the awkwardness to set in. But actually it didn't. It just had seemed so natural- and neither of them seemed particularly bothered by it. He did however apparently, feel the need to say something to break the silence.

"You did well to hear him, but there's nothing more you can do for him other then try to keep things together here. You shouldn't agonize over it," he said softly. "Conrad is going to be fine...I don't know about you, but I've known that all this time."

_How the hell__ are you so sure anyway, zombie? _She thought suddenly, with a surge of uncharacteristic bitterness._ Are you the voice of God? How do you know Conrad isn't ferret chow by now? Are you just standing there narrating everything while the rest of us act out little puppet shows for you?_

"I just...I'm so scared for him" she muttered, feeling silly, like a whiny little five year old being comforted by a patient older brother "Wherever he is, he's all alone."

_ His voice was so distorted, it was like hearing an echo...and he sounded so weary. He might've been alive then...but how long will he stay that way?_

The zombie shook his head at her, and gestured open palmed in her direction "Not entirely."

_Does he mean those other two vampires__?_ She thought, dumfounded _Or...?_

Toni squared her shoulders and shook her head to clear the thoughts scribbling inside her head like the doodles of a toddler with little motor control. _I need a distraction….__ I can't really think like this. _She then strolled over, extracting a soda and a box of chicken McNuggets. "Well...since you say he's fine...I don't see the harm in taking advantage of his flat screen," she said flashing an uneasy smile, uneasy, yeah, but getting better. At least she felt a little calmer now that she'd gotten crying out of the way.

Followed by practically having an aneurism after discovering that the zombie couldn't remember having ever seen an animated Disney movie, they made their way through half of the Lion King before she fell asleep on the loveseat, curled in a ball with her hands hugging her knees. It was thankfully a bit before Simba's dad died, because even like, twenty years later she couldn't handle that crap.

The condo had gotten so unnaturally silent for a blissful couple of hours or so, and she was so exhausted that she couldn't fight the hooks dragging her down into a nod. The last thing she saw was an orange blur that was probably Francisco's back as he lifted himself up and walked slowly towards the room where Hanna was sleeping, a Neil Gaiman book straight from Conrad's shelf under his arm.

She felt like she had barely closed her eyes, of course, when the godawful racket started again and she drew the couch blanket (this one was blue, actually) further up to cover her eyes at the explosion of movement all around her.

_"Hanna!" __RAP RAP RAP. _

_ "__Did ya mix up a recipe for mustard gas or what? Let us in!"_

First of all- Veser woke up…well…_kind of_. "Dude, shut the fuck up!" The teen snapped, aggravated. He was also a bit confused about the position he had fallen asleep in, cracking his neck and turning over like a grumpy child, to give the world his back as well as a huge 'fuck you'.

_Thanks, leave me to deal with it__, _she thought, frazzled as she listened to the snarling outside the door, which was barely recognizable as the English language, a really bastardized, inbred version anyway. _Crap...It's the Australian again_, she thought with a groan, dragging herself to her feet. _Hanna said I can't turn him into a chew toy. Bleh. As if he'd taste good anyway, he'd probably give me all kinds of pox._

She answered the door unceremoniously, almost causing Doctor Worth to fall forward because he seemed to be using the entirety of his upper body to make as much noise as he possibly could. His slouched posture stopped twisting mid air, slits of pale dishwater blue eyes barely visible and shining manic from burrows dark circles, like small, angry little animals.

"What?" she said, giving him the slackest, most bored expression she could force her face to relax into. It was an act of course, Toni had a hard time actually being bored with anything but she figured this sort of thing was the reason he had _apparently_memorized the route to Conrad's apartment anyway, so she might as well fill in the gaps for him.

They didn't have long to simply glare at each other however, because a few seconds later a sweaty tanned face appeared over his filthy-fuzz covered shoulder, black semicircles of dark eyes quirking up from a square shaped forehead. The man she would for now refer to in her head as "big lug" had a half moon smile and a mop of greasy black hair.

Despite how sweaty he was and the huge number of bruises painting his high cheek bones, Toni couldn't help but bite her cheek. _He's super cute.__  
><em>

She forced down a few choice words, still feeling as if she'd only slept five minutes. How long had it been, like, three hours? That was the best track record so far, but spread out the course of a week it fell a bit flat and she wasn't all that happy about it The stupidly cute guy just gave her a nervous smile, and thankfully interrupted before his companion could say anything more, putting his meaty hand on one of Worth's pointy shoulders, which made the other man scowl and draw back as if he'd been burned by holy water.

"I'm sorry to disturb you guys, but I'm a friend of Hanna, Worth dragged me here, heh."

"Dragged 'cause you were too much of a pussy 't sign up voluntarily," the other man said without much sympathy in his tone (real shocker there).

Toni leaned against the door, blinking sleepily and crossing her arms over her chest "No offense but...Why _are_ you two here?"

"Didn't come for 't the sake of 't company," Worth said again, this time flashing a glare at the Italian."Here fer an audience with His Royal Shortness if that's alright with _you_."

_ "Heh heh heh heh heh_,"he tittered like a broken record, briefly pressing his palms together and Toni sighed inwardly. _Aw man, he's cracked too._ _Why are all the cute ones dead or crazy? _Then he stopped abruptly and cleared his throat."That's a good question..and I'd be happy to answer it, but uh, first...May we come in please?" He paused again, awkwardly and added, "Sorry, my name is Lamont." He smiled and offered his hand genially, "And you?"

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Came the disgusted exclamation. "Ah already told ya her name was... Tony or some shit. One of those artsty-fartsy hipster names wot can be fer boys or girls. Can ya keep it in yer pants for ten minuites?" He turned fiercely on Toni. "And you. Move It. I'm sick of standin' in the fuckin' hallway."

Before Toni could answer, Worth rolled his eyes, flashing the whites of them and angrily shoving Lamont aside. He kicked the door and stomped past the werewolf and into the condo before she could even have the time to frown at him. It was more weariness than anything that kept her from moving- after all Hanna had told her to expect him even if she hadn't believed him at the time.

Lamont however hung back, giving her a shrug that said _Oh well, ain't he a card?_as if he was used to his friend, or whatever, breaking and entering on a daily basis. It really didn't seem like a stretch of the imagination, looking at either of them. Individually, they were trouble but together they were an entity that t looked like it belonged perfectly in Hanna's life for its sheer destructive potential.

She watched the Italian closely as he limped after Worth. It looked like he was carrying all his weight on his right hip, while the left one hitched uncomfortably with every stride. She didn't smell any blood on him however._He's got some kind of muscle injury though__,_ she was certain of it.

She walked faster, following nervously as the Australian made his way past Veser who had fallen asleep again, this time curled into a tight ball in the blanket with his face in the couch. The Australian was weaving in his weird slithering, half-drunken walk through the condo (with far too much familiarity, Toni thought, but who knows, she could've been imagining it).

She winced as he burst the door open in Conrad's bedroom where Hanna was sleeping. The redhead, unlike Veser, was a very light sleeper and was immediately startled, popping up out of the plaid covers of the bed like a piece of toast with lots of strawberry jam spread over it.

"Woah-hey Worth!" said Hanna, rubbing his eyes furiously and quirking his thick ginger eyebrows. "Heh I knew you'd come back, you were bein' all mysterious and shit. Congratulations on Toni not mauling you and stuff."

The zombie put down _American Gods__._ A tiny bundle of pages held between his green thumb and forefinger indicated that he was almost all the way through with the book. Folding the corner carefully, Francisco looked up to acknowledge that there was an angry Australian man huffing and puffing right in front of his face. "Did you find something else about Conrad's whereabouts?"

"Yeah, Worth," said Hanna with a huge, anticipatory grin. "Tell us what you found out!"

Now that Worth had all attention, he didn't seem to know quite what to do with it, and recoiled , distinctly ruffled. "Look this ain't 'Doctor Worth' 't the rescue or anythin' like that. I'm not in the business of goin' after dainty litt' damsels 'n what not."

"Yeah yeah, "_you don't give a shit about Conrad_"." Hanna mimed quotation marks in the air. "Whatever. I get it man. But if you know something, just spit it out!" he blurted hastily and continued staring at the Australian with huge expectant eyes.

"Yer damn right I don't give a shit 'bout Fagula," The Australian snapped back, bristling. "I just don't want ya _cryin'_on me all 't time..."

The younger man almost stood up impatiently, practically whining. "Dude, Worth please…"

Worth rounded on him, poking him in the chest. "An' I ain't yer fuckin' _Dude _either." He looked around for a bit and then honed in on the Italian, who raised his hands in a gesture that could only mean. _No. No. Not Me._

"If ya want a lead, don't look at me, look no further than this dipshit here," he snapped, fixing two claw-like hands over those broad shoulders and pushing him forward into the proverbial spotlight. "A supernat'ral entity can't take a fuckin' leakin this city without 'im 'earing about it eventually an' I bet if ya poke him 'ard enough he can help ya."

"Worth" Lamont hissed, obviously not at all interested in being poked.

_ I need to tell Hanna about …ugh, this seems important. It'll have to wait._

Toni lifted her head, coming face to face with the Italian, brown eyes widening as she regarded his nervous mannerisms. "Do you know anything? Do you have any idea of what that Van Slyke guy could've done with him…if he didn't kill him?"

"I-…hehehehehe," Lamont responded, his eyes widening into round expressions of discomfort while his smile remained large and forced. "Yeah, that's kind of why- at least I think," he shot a glare at Worth. "That's why I'm here." He coughed into his own fist and straightened up. "I might…heh, I _do_have certain connections that keep tabs on successful vampire hunters in the city..one of those…hehheheheh..."

Toni frowned in confusion as the man in front of her blushed and became broken up in one of those odd little fits. "She...She might have an idea of where he could've taken Conrad."

"She?" Hanna said, brow knitting- before he raised his fist. "Y'mean that vampire lady you've been screwing around wi-"

"_Hanna_" Toni said, wanting to laugh at the way Lamont's face suddenly turned beet red but somehow managed to swallow it down and settle for a twitching smile that she kept trying to force back down into a frown. Her attempts were unsuccessful.

Worth stuck his pockets into the enormous folds of his coat and drew himself up to the half-height he inhabited. Toni didn't even want to think about how tall he would've been if he'd stood up straight, like one of those giant spindly stick bugs one sometimes saw late at night. "Well I'm getting' t' the fuck out of here Hanna, and don't never say I never did nothin' for ya."

"I'd never say that," Hanna protested "Jeez why do ya have to be so _crabby_-"

"Wait Worth," Lamont said, his heavily lidded eyes widening. He walked closer, his smile beginning to flicker. "You can't drag me halfway across town at 8:15 am and then just leave me here..." _With these freaks__. _Toni finished for him in her head.

Well, she couldn't blame him- she knew how it felt to be dragged from her warm bed so early in the morning in search of _adventures_ and whatnot. 50 percent of the time it was really irritating, the other 50 percent was usually a lot of fun and like all other branches of the supernatural community, it was _always _pretty dangerous.

"Don't be such a puss Mont, I see you gaddin' about wif ghouls an' harpies 'n shit so don't tell me yer afraid of these clowns," the pseudo-doctor said, with very little sympathy.

Worth hunched over (more than usual), discarding his current cigarette and searching briefly for another in the depths of his filthy fur coat but apparently his quest was unsuccessful. He released an aggressive snort of breathe and went still for a moment...and then without warning he preceded to aim a punch at the zombie who had been standing very still, listening to all of this closemouthed and pensive.

There was a weak muffled sound, like someone had punched a bag of sand as the tall undead man stared down at Worth's outstretched fist with no more emotion than before.

"Why did you do that?" he asked wonderingly, no more offended than if say, someone had politely disagreed with views on global warming.

The blonde man squared his shoulders and whirled around again, socking Hanna quickly in the arm. However rather than reacting in favorable manner, the redhead only squeaked and almost fell off the bed, clutching his arm and glaring with a hurt, almost pouty expression. "What the _hell,_man!"

The "Doctor" hung there in disgusted silence and then pocketed his fist again. "'S not the _same__,_" he muttered sulkily, and then shook his head. "Fuck this."

_The same as what exactly..?_

"H-hey!" Lamont stammered as the blonde man began to stalk away.

"Thanks Worth!" said Hanna cheerfully, his eyes brightening as he heard the front door slam. From across the house, Toni winced when she heard what sounded like the entire coffee table tipping over and a harsh THUD which couldn't have been anything other than Veser falling off the couch. Or maybe Worth kicking him off the couch on his way out.

"HEY-! WHAT THE FUCK!"

_Yep, he definitely kicked him._

"I knew I could always count on him," Hanna said with a copious and thoroughly undeserved amount of confidence and hope... Towards Worth. Directed at _Worth_.

"Hanna, you have _terrible judgment__,_" Toni said with a sigh as she thought about having to put up with another entire day of pick-up lines all along the lines of 'Strike yer panties and prepare to be boarded'.

The makeshift magician didn't hesitate- with a seemingly endless fountain of energy flowing under his feet, he sprung off the bed as if it were a diving board and landed without a hitch. Toni let a relieve smile replace the look of confusion on her features. It'd been way too long since she'd seen him like that and it was a relief- possibly a signal that they were getting somewhere and things were eventually going to be "normal" again. Or at least, as normal as it got around this place.

"Calm down, Monty," he reassured the nervous thug with a smile. "We're just trying to find our friend." He shook his head, "I don't know why I didn't ask you earlier if you knew anything about this Van Slyke guy. I mean _duh_, Lamont knows everyone. Well..." He shrugged "Everyone you can make a buck off of."

Lamont sighed, shifting back and forth on his feet. There was something in his eyes that told Toni that this- meaning Hanna's blue eyes- was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. _I __guess he just can't say no to Worth or something._

"What I do know isn't encouraging. He's known for being _really_ adamant... He rarely lets vampires live under any circumstances. My lead..." He ran one of his hands through that incomprehensible tangle of greasy black hair. "If it's true it's a long shot, and I mean _a really __long shot_. It's much more likely... I mean with his youth and everything..." He winced. "Hanna it's much more likely that he's gone."

Before Hanna's face even had time to fall, Toni interrupted, taking a swift glance from Francisco as a warning signal to butt in. She didn't need any other motivation. She'd been bursting to tell everyone about what she had heard since the moment it had happened.

"Conrad has to be alive," she broke in, not surprised at all when it caused everyone in the room to turn their eyes on her. But she didn't waver, after all she was used to that sort of thing.

"Or at least I'm certain he was three hours ago..I.." she paused for just a second, using the time to take a deep breath. "I heard his voice. With my...empathy. I'm almost sure it's because we were both thinking about each-other at the same time and I was focusing really hard...but the thing is..." she trailed off.

"He didn't sound like he was here did he?" Lamont answered for her, looking suddenly very resigned. "His voice was an echo, right?"

She frowned at him, eyebrows sinking downward as she nodded. "Yeah.._exactly_, but how did you know that?"

"Because fuck it- I do know where he is," he said, not looking very happy about it. "And it's going to be a giant _bitch_-," He blinked and cleared his throat. "I mean heh, it's really not going to be easy to get him out of there."

"Out of where!" Hanna and Toni both said simultaneously- Francisco remained silent but he looked more interested than usual, his dark slanted eyes narrowing and his jaw setting on that broad jaw.

"_Cirque des Damnes_," Lamont said the foreign name synonymously with a sigh, though he said it with an air of practice that led Toni to believe that he was in fact, used to the language. The name sent a gigantic chain reaction of ringing- like clanging church bells in Toni's mind. Hadn't she heard of that before? But where? In an old story..maybe?

She had already opened her mouth before seeing that Lamont had held up his hands to staunch the questions that bled from both of them like a mortal wound. "Hold on. I'll explain it later- _and_ how Adelaide is involved. But this is important- Worth said there were other vampires with him when Abner took him. _Which ones?/I _ What were their names?"

Hanna and Toni glanced at each other. It was right on the tip of her tongue- Breadstick-Man and Loafy. Lumiere and Cogsworth. Jay and Silent Bob. _Crap Crap what were their names again?_

Veser poked his head in the door, still very grumpy from being woken up in such a pleasant way. "What the fuck is going on in here?" he muttered, pointing at Lamont. "Who's that jack-off?"

Everyone ignored him.

"Finas and Casimiro," the zombie offered. "I think that was it."

"_Hey_guys-"

Lamont glanced at both of them, and suddenly the nervous laughter and blushing was back ten fold, in a gigantic eruption. Hanna shrugged and gave Toni a baffled look, poking the inconsolable Italian in the chest.

"What's the deal Monty, do you _know_ them or something?"

"_GUYS__ what's going onn_-" Veser whined.

By the time they got him to calm down and explain himself, he was already cursing.

"Hehehehehe- _Fuck__."_

* * *

><p><em>As usual the beautiful coverart can be seen over at DA on the account of SuperCatGirl! Go check it out. Also characters and plots and everything are credited to Tessa Stone. 3 (I miss you, Tessa!)<em>


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